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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY ORIENTAL STUDIES 
Vou. XXV 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
CoLuMBIA UNIVERSITY 
New York 


FOREIGN AGENT 

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
HUMPHREY MILFORD 

AMEN Hovss, Lonpon, E.C. 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


A Study in the Religious Syncretism 
of the Hellenistic Orient 


' BY 
CARL H. KRAELING, Pu.D. 


Instructor at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia 


NEW YORK ~ 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
1927 


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Dr. Carl H. Kraeling has undertaken to discuss a subject 
that must always be of much interest to students of comparative 
religion. It is one that has taken him far afield, into Hellenistic 
and Gnostic systems, into Manichean and Mandean religious 
thought, into Jewish religious literature, and finally, to the New 
Testament. His book has been prepared with great thoroughness, 
and with a full knowledge of the difficulty of the subject that he 
was handling. I cordially recommend it to the many students 
who must be interested in this field of investigation. 

RICHARD GOT THEIL. 


PREFACE 


THE inquiry embodied in the following pages is the outgrowth 
of a paper presented by the author in a Seminar on the ‘‘ New 
Testament Conception of the Person of Christ,” conducted by 
Professor KE. F. Scott at Union Theological Seminary in 1922-23. 
It represents the examination of a conclusion tentatively drawn 
by Professor R. Reitzenstein of Gottingen from his brilliant 
investigations into the development of religious ideas in the 
Hellenistic Orient, namely the conclusion that the Jewish-Christian 
Son of Man (literally “‘the man’’) is but one manifestation of an 
ubiquitous Oriental figure known in certain syncretistic circles as 
“the Anthropos.”’ 

Hypotheses such as this cannot be disposed of by a priori 
considerations. They require sympathetic appreciation and 
study of the materials with which they deal. As a consequence 
our inquiry has become a study in Oriental Syncretism, its roots 
and vagaries, rather than a discourse on Biblical Theology. In 
itself this constitutes no fault, for whatever conclusions one may 
reach regarding the merits of a specific hypothesis, it remains true 
that Oriental Syncretism is a territory the resources and strategic 
importance of which for the study of the development of religious 
thought deserve investigation. 

The inquiry furnishes for the first time, we believe, a fairly 
complete account of the part played by the Anthropos in late 
Oriental thought. The fuller examination of the sources has 
made it possible to discover for the first time stratification in the 
tradition and thus to gain valuable criteria for the origin and 
antiquity of the figure and for the determination of its different 
associations, pagan, Jewish and Christian. 

Vu 


PREFACE 


In entering upon a field of such diverse contacts and ramifica- 
tions as the syncretistic, the writer has constantly felt the lmita- 
tions of his own abilities. The counsel and assistance of his 
esteemed teachers and friends have therefore been of particular 
value. Sincere thanks are due to Prof. R. J. Gottheil, who 
supervised the labors involved, Prof. A. V. W. Jackson, whose 
intimate acquaintance with Manicheism and Iranian religion were 
constantly drawn upon, Prof. E. F. Scott, whose cautious scholar- 
ship assisted in preserving the perspective in dealing with New 
and Old Testament matters, Prof. J. A. Montgomery, whose 
hospitable home was the scene of many hours spent in the reading 
and interpretation of Mandaic texts, Prof. R. Reitzenstein, whose 
interest and criticism were very helpful, Profs. H. Offermann and 
M. Dibelius, to whom the author owes his interest in matters 
Hellenistic, and to my brother, Prof. E. G. H. Kraeling, whose 
sympathy and assistance in matters large and small were a constant 
source of inspiration. 

This book is printed with funds ee in part from the legacy 


of Magdalena Schenk. 
CARL H. KRAELING. 


Krauth Memorial Library. 
Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. 
May 31, 1927. 


Vili 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I 
PAGE 
eee Oe OF THE ANTHROPOS 2100 ee cee eed 1-16 
CHAPTER II 
MORPOIVOANICHTAN FRIMAL MAN. ... ic... 0. cb eee due wulecees 17-37 
Meeebre se yeatieneaty MYSUCEMN... 0... kk ee cee ete seeeeeusn 17 
Beane reins ian mm Cosmogony..:. 2... ee ec ee ee ee eee 18 
3. The Primal Man, the Soul and the Creation of Adam............. 21 
4. The Primal Man and the Messengers........................05. 24 
5. The Primal Man, Adam, Seth and Noah........................ 28 
6. The Primal Man, Buddha and Zarathushtra..................... 28 
Pemetererr TIS) NAT ANG JESUS. 2.) once ns ce bn eee eee ocean gine 31 
pepmrerrriinar ian and Mani: : we ce ee ee ene 34 
peeneserimnal Winn in Mschatology..... 2.0... - ace cee cs tweens 36 
CHAPTER III 
THE ANTHROPOS IN HELLENISTIC AND WESTERN GNOSTIC SYSTEMS... 38-54 
1. The Provenience of the Anthropos in the Littoral Orient.......... 38 
2. The Anthropos in the Syncretism of Egypt...................... 41 
3. The Anthropos in Syrian Syncretism............0.......0000 ee 47 
CHAPTER IV 
THE MANDEAN TRADITION CONCERNING THE ANTHROPOS............ 55-73 
MIRC TELITCIEA TIO! «655s, so 4 ee Apa ned at ice gle tlw tee elas es ba 3 RemeDO 
2. Manda d’Haye and the Anthropos. ................00 ce pee eaee 56 
EES ie is eeu iey Hea is a's As RS 59 
REE 0 PE Rg LAE lala le eet n toon a, >. a eleiievs oh Sine ps 63 
5. The Messengers and the Anthropos...................0-020005- 64 
6. Echoes of the Poimandres in Mandean Texts..................-. 70 


ix 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER V 
PAGE 
Tue ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS................-- 74-127 
1. Rival Hypotheses Concerning the Origin of the Anthropos........ 74 
2. The Iranian Gayomart and the Anthropos...................... 85 
3. The Origin and Development of the Anthropos in the Role of 
Primordial Champion and Cosmogonal Agent.................. 94 
4. The Anthropos as the Soul and as the Creator of Man............ 109 
5. The Anthropos in the Role of Savior......................+.05. 123 
6. The Antiquity of the Anthropos Speculation..................... 126 
CHAPTER VI 
THe ANTHROPOS IN JEWISH THOUGHT................0+2-.00000. 128-165 
1.. Presuppositions. . ... 2.5.0... 0.0. seg se ile 128 
2. The Jewish Elements in is Figure of the Bar Nasha............. 130 
3. The Non-Jewish Elements of the Bar Nasha and the Anthropos.... 141 
4. The Anthropos, the Celestial Adam and the Adamites............ 151 
CHAPTER VII 
THE ANTHROPOS AND THE NEW TESTAMENT SON OF MaAn......... 166-186 
1. The Fourth Gospel and the Anthropos Speculation............... 167 
2. Paul and the Anthropos..... 2). 24. ss. eee 174 © 
3. The Synoptic Son of Man and the Anthropos.................... 180 
SUMMARY AND’ CONCLUSION. . . 2... + «s=> 4 se ue oe Oe 187-190 
ABBREVIATIONS........ (ele sce anes Bese os ble ait ales i 191 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


CHAPTER I 
THE PROBLEM OF THE ANTHROPOS 


In the history of the world’s religious life, there is no period 
simultaneously quite as significant, fascinating and difficult as the 
Hellenistic. Significant it was, if for no other reason than that at 
this juncture the idea of a universal religion was firmly imbedded 
in the hopes and aspirations of the Western world. To us that 
may not seem a momentous achievement, for we lack the per- 
spective. But if we look into the distant past when religion was 
but a family, a clan, a national and racial matter, and look ahead 
to a time when it may be truly an expression of the contact of 
humanity with the ‘one God and Father of us all,”’ the appearance 
of this idea upon the world’s religious horizon, is a moment of 
triumph. 

New concepts such as that of a universal religion are not born 
in the human mind at will. They are the product of a ‘‘world 
pining in pain” and seeking “but to know His name.”’ Wherever 
we look in the Hellenistic world we see the traces of its travail 
written large before us. Everything is turmoil and uproar. The 
ancient values are being subverted, national institutions and 
limitations are breaking down. There is a search for new forms 
of expression, and for that intangible something that looms darkly 
ahead. The religious world has become a vast melting-pot within 
which the currents of influence run hither and yon. The old 
order struggles for its preservation; human temperament employs 
its new freedom for higher and lower ends; religious anarchy 

1 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


overthrows all semblance of order and unity; the East pours the 
floods of myth and mysticism into the disintegrating forms of 
Western practise; old Gods and new, Jewish and Christian, Greek 
and Barbarian, all are drawn together under the common impulse 
of attraction, and are thrust apart by the common impulse of 
repulsion. These are among the signs of the times which produced 
religion’s fairest flower. 

Fascinating it is to gaze into a milieu charged with so many 
elemental powers, but difficult indeed to delve into its midst in 
search of knowledge, without being confused by the sight of how 


. the flaring atom-streams 
And torrents of her myriad universe, 
Ruining along the illimitable inane, 
Fly on to clash together again, and make 
Another and another frame of things 
Forever. ; 


Yet the student of religion and particularly of Christianity cannot 
afford to shun the maze and the search for those guiding forces 
that produced in the midst of diversity a new and higher unity, 
the religion of salvation and of the one God. 

It is not so long ago that scholars considered Christianity 
itself, as it spread from the narrow confines of Palestine to the 
“limits of the setting sun,” the one potent and directive force in 
the midst of an impotent and bewildered world, the one ray of 
light in utter darkness. To-day that view is no longer tenable. 
True, no one will deny to Christianity an important place in the 
course of development, for Christianity was actually the form in 
which the new religious ideas were transmitted to posterity. Yet 
it is also true that from the moment when it spread beyond the 
limits of Judea and Galilea, it allied to itself forces already opera- 
tive and at its disposal. To pass an intelligent verdict upon the 
course of affairs in the Hellenistic world we must need know those 
forces as well as the Christian. For a time scholars thought they 
had found them in the ‘Mystery Religions,’ the Hellenistic 
transformations of the fertility cults of the Near East. They too 
were teaching salvation in word and sacrament, and had a con- 

2 


THE PROBLEM OF THE ANTHROPOS 


tribution to make to the progress of thought. As the ultimate 
origin of any far-reaching development they cannot serve, for 
they are themselves the product of forces that lie outside the 
sphere of the ancient fertility cults from which they have sprung. 

To-day scholars, following the idea that the main channel of 
influence runs from East to West, are endeavoring to determine 
whether Syria, Mesopotamia and Iran were the source from which 
sprang the vivifying and transforming powers of Hellenistic 
religious life. Perhaps it is difficult to apprehend just how the 
test is to be made. Our knowledge of the religious history of 
these districts is but fragmentary. There is a great gap in the 
tradition that extends from the Persian conquest to the very end 
of the first Christian century and thus embraces that crucial 
period that lies behind the rise of the Mystery Religions and 
Christianity. The only Eastern religion the course of which we 
can follow during these centuries with some degree of continuity 
is Judaism, and Judaism, while it shows the effect of changes in 
regional sentiment, was on the whole too individualistic, too 
deeply rooted in the trend of its own development to make it a 
good source for the knowledge of that which stirred the soul of the 
greater Orient. The first development that we can trace in the 
Near East after the long eclipse is that form of religious anarchy 
known as Gnosticism, and defined by no less an authority than 
Harnack as the “acute Hellenization of Christianity.” 

What then may be the evidence upon the basis of which the 
contribution of the Near East to the religious life of the West 
is to be judged? Direct evidence there is none. Of indirect 
evidence, difficult to handle, there is a great deal. It lies imbedded 
in the “forgotten faiths” of which mention has just been made. 

When Harnack produced his famous definition of Gnosticism, 
all that was known of the movement was contained in the polemi- 
cal writings of the Christian heresiologists. To-day we have at 
our disposal in addition three great groups of first-hand sources, 
the corpus of Coptic Gnostic works, the large body of Mandean 
writings, and the great mass of Turfan texts on Manicheism. 

The new sources have revealed that whatever be the origin of 
the Gnostic movement, the mass of phantasmagoria, ideas and 

3 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


practises in which it expresses itself embodies countless elements 
harking back to the religions of the ancient Orient. The analysis 
of the Gnostic sources and of Gnosticism as a whole will, therefore, — 
eventually place scholars in a position to bridge the gap in our 

knowledge of the religious development in the East, and by the 
use of those ancient elements whose survival of the ravages of 
time is documented in Gnosticism, to reconstruct in part that 
Proto-Gnostic or Neo-Oriental sphere of thought within which 
may lie the key to the enigma of Hellenistic religious movements. 

Gnosticism is not an easy task-mistress. Her world is not 
that of great minds and paramount personalities, but rather that 
of the many little folk. They were all men with a vision, these 
Gnostics. ‘They made room in their minds for the whole world, 
so far as they knew it. Yet the product of their efforts was 
invariably a conglomeration rather than a creation. This charac- 
teristic of their work is responsible, of course, for the preservation 
of so many traditional religious elements. It is responsible, 
however, also for the difficulties inherent in the study of Gnosti- 
cism. Because they were conglomerations, the Gnostic systems 
disintegrated over night, to be replaced on the morrow by newer 
and more daring constructions. To look into the Gnostic world 
is thus to gaze into a kaleidoscope, and to behold a limited mass 
of material blending at each turn into new shapes and groups, 
with ever changing color and significance. Gnosticism is that 
part of the Hellenistic melting-pot most violently boiling. 

To determine, in all the riot of Gnostic symbols, practises and 
ideas, those that are ancient and revert to a Proto-Gnostic period, 
is then by no means a simple matter. The associations of a 
figure or a practise, the form and temper of an idea vary continu- 
ally. . Zoe, ‘‘Life,’’ for instance, is at times merely a concept 
expressing quality, or again the name of a divine emanation, or 
the name of Adam’s spouse, or the designation of the supreme 
God, or the basic principle of divine existence. Which is ultimate, 
and where is the origin of the religious use of the term? Only a 
careful analysis of figure after figure, concept after concept, only 
the segregation of primary, secondary and tertiary associations 
on the basis of sound principles, and only a continual correction 

{ 


THE PROBLEM OF THE ANTHROPOS 


of results obtained at one point by the results of other inquiries 
will eventually give the desired information. 

The following chapters represent an inquiry into the nature, 
origin and development of a Gnostic figure most conveniently, 
referred to by the name it bore in Western Gnostic systems, 
namely “‘the Anthropos.’”’ We have chosen this figure as the 
subject of investigation for three reasons: 


1. Because it is more widely known in Gnostic circles than 
many others and because its analysis, while proportionately more 
difficult, may therefore possibly lead to conclusions of greater 
import and validity in regard to the genesis and early character 
of Gnosticism. 

2. Because the Anthropos has been the subject of extensive 
controversy within recent years in connection with Reitzenstein’s 
work on syncretism. 

3. Because numerous scholars have thought to see in the 
Anthropos the solution of the famous and long-standing “Son of 
Man” controversy. 


To anyone interested in the development of later Jewish and 
early Christian thought, the last of these reasons will be of suffi- 
cient importance to merit further elucidation. 

Twenty years ago Schweitzer, in surveying the course of Gospel 
criticism, declared that the Son of Man problem had been solved. 
For this contention he found support in three things, first, in the 
results achieved by the scholars of the nineteenth century in the 
historical and exegetical inquiry into the significance and use of 
the name, second, in the light thrown upon the name itself by 
the philological phase of the inquiry, third, in the eschatological 
interpretation of Jesus and the early Christian movement, an 
interpretation of which Schweitzer was a chief exponent. ! 

1 The outstanding works on the history of the inquiry into the significance 
of the name Son of Man are the following, W. Scholten, Specimen hermeneu- 
tico-theologicum de appellatione 6 vw&s rot avOpmrov qua Jesus se Messiam 
professus est (1809), pp. 142-208; L. T. Schulze, Menschensohn u. Logos 
(1868); A. Meyer, Jesus Muttersprache (1896); H. Lietzmann, Der Men- 
schensohn (1896); P. W. Schmiedel, Der Name Menschensohn, Prot. Monats- 
hefte (1898), pp. 252-267; W. Baldensperger, Die neueste Forschung viber den 

5) 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


To the men of the nineteenth century New Testament scholar- 
ship in general and Schweitzer in particular owed most in this 
matter. Virtually, they were the discoverers of the Son of Man 
problem. The name about which so much was written by them, 
presented no difficulty at all to the scholars of the ancient and 
mediaeval Church. Almost without exception the Fathers agreed 
that its use by or of an individual designated him as a human being 
in a physical sense.2, As employed by Jesus it was to be correlated 
with the name Son of God, as in the well-known hymn: | 

Fairest Lord Jesus 
Lord of all creation, 


Son of God 
And Son of Man. 


With the eve of the Reformation the artificiality of this interpre- 
tation began to dawn upon Christian writers. The contacts 
developing at this time between Jewish and Christian scholars 
were no doubt ultimately responsible for the suggestions that the 
designation was of Messianic significance, but might under certain 
circumstances be merely a circumlocution of a personal pronoun.* 
The suggestions advanced bore little fruit. The sense of the his- 
torical had not yet developed sufficiently. Three centuries later 
the Idealistic philosophers could still read the meaning ‘‘ideal 
man’”’ into the words.* 


Begriff Menschensohn, Theol. Rundschau (1900), pp. 201-10, 243-55; N. 
Schmidt, art. Son of Man, Encyclopedia Biblica (1903); P. Feine, Theologie 
des Neuen Testaments (1910), pp. 53-6; H. J. Holtzmann, Newtestamenliche 
Theologie, 2nd ed. (1911), vol. II, pp. 3138-335; A. Schweitzer, Geschichte der 
Leben Jesu Forschung, 2nd ed., (1913), pp. 266-72. 

2 So already Ignatius, Epistle to the Ephesians, 20, 2, and thereafter, Bar- 
nabas, Episile, 12, 9-10; Justin Martyr, Dialogus, 76, 100; Irenaeus, adversus 
Haereses, III, 3, 5, 7; Tertullian, adversus Praxeas, 33; Origen, de Principitis, 
II, 6, 3; Athanasius, Hpistula wv. ad Serapionem, 20; Gregory Nazianzen, Ora- 
tio, xxxvi; Chrysostom, Homilia in Iohannem, 39, 3; Augustine, contra 
Faustum, I, 4; Jerome, Commen. in Psalmos, ad Ps. 8. The only one to 
depart from the orthodox conception was Irenaeus, cf. adv. Haereses, V, 21, 1. 

5 Cf. the list of authors in Scholten, Specimen, pp. 167-74, and N. Schmidt, 
art. Son of Man, § 15. 

‘So Herder, Christliche Schriften, II, 5, 6 (ed. Wiedemann, vol. 19), and 
- Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube (first ed., 1821), 5th ed., II, p. 90f. 

6 


THE PROBLEM OF THE ANTHROPOS 


As the nineteenth century wore on, matters changed with great 
rapidity. While the older school still considered it a crime against 
the originality of Jesus to suppose that he had adopted rather than 
coined the name, the majority pressed on in search of sources. 
A number of such sources were adduced, singly or in groups, to 
satisfy the demands of the three distinct connotations which the 
name bears in the New Testament, as the designation of one who 
is to come with the clouds of heaven, who is to suffer and die, and 
who lives asa man among men. It was particularly ‘‘ the manlike 
one”’ of Daniel 7, 13 and of the apocalypse of Enoch, Ezekiel’s use 
of ben ’adam, and the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 which were 
referred to. Soon it was no longer sufficient merely to point to a 
possible source. It became imperative to know whether the source 
was capable of bearing the testimony elicited from it. Scholars 
therefore inquired whether the ‘‘manlike one” of Daniel was a 
symbol of the nation or a concrete personality. They asked them- 
selves whether the Apocalypse of Enoch was a pre-Christian prod- 
uct and Jewish in entirety, or whether it was Jewish with Christian 
interpolations or entirely Christian. They speculated whether 
ben ’adam had taken on the connotation “‘prophet”’ by being used 
of Ezekiel. Wide divergence of opinion upon these points did not 
materially increase the number of interpretations of the name. 
The majority considered it an intelligible or engimatic messianic 
designation, others regarded it as a name connoting frail humanity, 
still others as a name indicative of prophetic character. But no 
two similar conclusions were reached upon an identical use of 
sources, and no one source furnished a satisfactory solution for 
the whole problem, Confidence was thereby shaken in all con- 
clusions, and systematic scepticism, making itself felt in other 
spheres as well, added a further difficulty. It asked the question 
to what extent it is possible and psychologically intelligible that 
Jesus was actually conscious of his messianic calling. It was a 
question that had to be answered before further argument upon 
the Son of Man problem was possible. 

After a temporary lull in the discussion of the name, opinion 
began to consolidate itself once more. That was in the nineties 
of the past century. Of course there were the usual extremes, a 

7 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


Dutch school that denied the historicity of Jesus’ use of Son of 
Man, and a group in England and France that endeavored to 
synthesize the manifold suggestions offered in explanation of its 
use, and make it a vehicle for the expression of many ideas. The 
opinion of the majority that stood between these two extremes 
was consolidated by two factors, first the conclusion that Jesus’ 
messianic consciousness, though admittedly a development, had 
reached its climax and become an actual fact prior to or in connec- 
tion with the episode at Caesarea Philippi, second, the conclusion 
that the Book of Enoch was essentially a Jewish product and not 
contaminated by Christian interpolations. 

Studying the evidence in the light of these conclusions, scholar- 
ship achieved a number of definite results. It decided in the 
first place that the factor of greatest importance in the use and 
interpretation of the name was the connection with Daniel. The 
discrepancy between the Son of Man as a messianic personality 
with a proper name, and the ‘“‘manlike one”’ of Daniel, a nameless 
symbol of the chosen people, was no longer troublesome. ‘The 
Book of Enoch could now be used to prove that a transition in the 
direction of the New Testament conception had been in progress 
before Jesus’ day. It determined also that since the designation 
in its messianic force is not found in the New Testament prior to 
the account of the Caesarea episode, therefore its use in this 
sense is unobjectionable and probably historical. Jesus, by the 
appropriation of the name Son of Man had, then, referred to 
himself as the Messiah of the apocalypses. 

Significant as these conclusions were, they did not solve the 
problem entirely. Two difficulties remained, namely what to do 
with the passages where the designation lacked the messianic 
connotation, and, how to reconcile the reticence of Jesus and his 
presence among men with the brusque claim to transcendent 
messiahship registered by his use of the name Son of Man. 

The philological phase of the controversy, covering the period 
between 1896 and 1901, permanently reopened an old way out of 
the first difficulty. It was due to the realization that Jesus and 
his disciples spoke an Aramaic dialect of Palestine, that the inquiry 
for a time entered different channels. Working with the new 

8 


THE PROBLEM OF THE ANTHROPOS 


realization, Lietzmann set forth the fact that the New Testament 
form of the name Son of Man, namely 6 ivds rot dvOpdérov, was a 
literal and inexact rendering of Aramaic bar nasha. This expres- 
sion, he endeavored to show, signified merely ‘‘one” or ‘‘someone”’ 
and was too general to have been used aS a proper name. Jesus 
had never identified himself with the ‘“‘manlike one” of the 
apocalypses. Hellenistic Christians after Paul, half-ignorant of 
Semitic idiom, had read it into the record. ® 

When Wellhausen for a time accepted the conclusions of 
Lietzmann, the Son of Man problem seemed to have vanished 
into thin air together with the recently reaffirmed historicity of 
Jesus’ use of the name. It was not long, however, before a 
closer examination of the Talmudic sources conveying a knowledge 
of the Palestinian dialects, showed that Lietzmann’s conclusions 
had been hasty. After Dalman’s unsuccessful attempt to uphold 
the individuality of the element bar in bar nasha, Fiebig finally 
clinched the argument by showing that the expression could and 
did signify either ‘“‘a man” (i.e., “‘someone’’) or ‘“‘the man.’”’® In 
the latter sense at least, the words could serve as a name (even as 
in the name “the Anthropos” applied to our Gnostic figure) 
provided that there existed, when the name was coined, a set of 
associations which would make it intelligible. The Jewish 
apocalypses of course furnished these associations, and thus the 
problem was reopened. 

The whole dispute had two visible results. It permanently 
established the original form and force of the name. In addition, 
however, it furnished scholars with a positive basis for erasing 
the name from those passages in which it lacked the fundamental 
messianic connotation. For while the fact that it pervaded all 
strata of New Testament tradition made it impossible to discount 
the use of the name entirely, its presence in individual passages 
could be the result of mistranslation. 

The marks of the struggle in philological matters were rapidly 
obliterated by the rising tide of the movement in which Schweitzer 
played a prominent part, that of the Eschatological School. 


5 Der Menschensohn (1896). 
6 Der Menschensohn (1901). 


_ ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


Aiming to set aside the cold artificiality characterizing the Jesus 
of the rationalistic and psychological interpreters, and to resurrect 
the man of flesh and blood, the emotional child of the colorful 
Orient, it had ended in making him an enthusiast and dreamer 
whose outlook was determined entirely by the thought of the 
stupendous catastrophe impending upon the world. Only a 
carpenter’s son, yet conscious of a mission to declare the coming 
of the Kingdom, he was torn between the hope and despair of its 
arrival and his success as its herald. In the face of public rejec- 
tion and disbelief, he dared to grasp the hand of the Almighty 
_ and willingly sacrificed his life, believing that God in his inscrut- 
able wisdom might have chosen to make him hereafter “‘the man”’ 
who was to usher in the consummation. By speaking of himself 
in those last days, as the Son of Man, he gave expression to what 
he dared hope to be, not that which he was, and to ‘‘refer in the 
only way possible to his messianic office as destined to be realized 
at his ‘coming.’”’’ Thus interpreted the name was no longer in 
conflict with his humanity. 

To hold this interpretation, and to reject the non-apocalyptic 
use of the name as secondary by the hypothesis of mistranslation, 
was to surmount the difficulties which the scholars of the previous 
century had faced but not conquered. Thus Schweitzer could 
claim that the Son of Man problem had been solved. ® 

If the discussions of the last twenty years have shown any one 
thing it is this that even the ‘‘eschatological” interpretation is 
not the last step in the long inquiry into the name Son of Man. 
There has been the usual reaction against the overaccentuation of 
a newly discovered principle. The words of Jesus have in this 
case furnished the strongest arguments against the views of the 
“consequential eschatologists.’”’ They are not merely sayings of 
one who expected the immediate and catastrophic end of the 
world. They are based upon a keen appreciation of ultimate and 
eternal verities, and look toward the positive transformation of 
society through the renovation of human character. Judging by 
his words Jesus was more than a dreamer and apocalypticist. 

7 Schweitzer, op. cit., p. 273. 

8 Ibid., p. 272. 

10 


THE PROBLEM OF THE ANTHROPOS 


Hence his adoption of the name Son of Man, particularly in the 
light of his reticence in employing other messianic designations, 
must have some further and broader foundation than the mere 
hope that he would some day play the role of apocalyptic Messiah. 
Its use must have roots that lie imbedded in the positive principles 
guiding his life and thought. In view of this fact, it is unwise to 
reject those New Testament passages in which the name lacks 
messianic connotation. They may yet have a service to render. 
Thus the question has once more been thrown open; indeed a 
new element has been added to the inquiry, namely, what is the 
ultimate origin of the Son of Man figure? Where did Daniel get 
it in the first place? Is it a creation or an importation as so much 
of the apocalyptic imagery? The question is not unimportant 
because its answer may shed light upon the particular nature of 
the ideas associated with the figure. 

Recent discussion of the problem begins virtually where the 
scholars of the last nineties stopped. It begins with the fact 
that “‘Jesus is and is called Son of Man wherever forgiving and 
healing, teaching and suffering he heralds, spreads and witnesses 
to the Kingdom and especially where, coming with the clouds of 
heaven, he establishes it among men.’’? It endeavors to determine 
from this basis that interpretation of the name and its usage which 
will bring it somehow into relation with the controlling factors of 
Jesus’ life and with his ethical and exemplary ne regarding 
the Kingdom. 

While the objective has never been more evident, and repre- 
sents a goal correctly perceived, the actual progress toward it has 
proven slight. The majority seem to feel that in the non-apoca- 
lyptic usage of the name lies the key to the solution of the riddle. 
Not that they would make this the central factor in the signifi- 
cance and the choice of the nomenclature, but that they would 
use it as a bridge by which Jesus was led and could lead others to 
the higher messianic use of the name. What then may be the 
sense in which Jesus used “Son of Man” in the earlier period of 
his life? One of three suggestions is usually offered. He employed 
it to denote his ideal manhood, his frail manhood, or his prophetic 

9H. J. Holtzmann, Neutest. Theol., 2nd ed. (1911), II, p. 327. 

11 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


calling.!° These suggestions have a familiar ring. They were 
advanced early in the past century by Schleiermacher,?!! 
de Wette!2 and Weizsacker respectively, 1? and played no part in 
the consensus of opinion attained by scholars toward the end of 
that century. Their reénunciation shows that no actual progress 
has been made along the desired lines. 

This peculiar state of affairs is evidence not of a lack of mental 
acumen on the part of recent investigators, but rather of the fact 
- that the range of Biblical and Apocryphal sources for determining 
the desired force of the name is limited. Psalm 8, Isaiah 53 and 
Ezekiel’s ben ’adam apparently exhaust the possibilities and have 
been reinvoked in spite of their insufficiency. Insufficient they 
are because no one of them will cover the range of associations 


10TIpEAL Manuoop: S. R. Driver, art. Son of Man, Hastings Dictionary 
of the Bible, vol. IV (1902), § 21; G. Milligan, The Messianic Consciousness 
of Jesus, The Expositor, VI, 5 (1902), pp. 74-80; Grill, Untersuchungen viber 
die Entstehung des vierten Evangelium, I (1902), p. 46-76; Zahn, Kommentar, 
Evangelium des Matthéus (1903), pp. 347-57; Shailer Matthews, Messianic 
Hope in the New Testament (1905), p. 102 ff.; C. H. Macfarland, Jesus and the 
Prophets (1905); J. A. Robinson, The Study of the Gospels (1906), p. 60 ff.; 
Sanday, The Life of Christ in Recent Research (1908), pp. 123-30; E. A. Abbott, 
Diatessarica, Pt. 8 (1910), The Son of Man; T. Stephenson, The Title Son of 
Man, Expository Times, May, 1918, pp. 377-8; Dougall and Emmet, The 
Lord of Thought (1922), chap. 23. . 

Frain Manuoop: Milligan, op. cit.; M. Goguel, L’Apétre Paul et Jesus 
Christ (1904), p. 222; G. G. Findlay, The Theology of St. John, Expository 
Times, vol. 16 (1904-5), pp. 76-8; Macfarland, op. cit.; Robinson, op. cit.; 
G. Peloux, Le Fils de VHomme (1906); Sanday, op. cit.; Bard, Sohn des 
Menschen (1908); James Denney, Jesus and the Gospel (1909), pp. 255-65; 
D. Volter, Theol. Rundschau, 1909, p. 154 ff.; the same, Jesus der Menschen- 
sohn (1914); E. A. Abbott, op. cit.; E. C. Dewick, Primitive Christian Eschat- 
ology (1912); James Moffat, The Theology of the Gospels (1912), pp. 150-63; 
James Stalker, art. Son of Man, International Bible Encyclopedia (1915); 
A. Schlatter, Geschichte des Christus (1921), pp. 165-9; A. C. Headlam, 
Infe and Teaching of Jesus the Christ (1923), pp. 305-7. 

PropHetT: D. Vélter, Die Menschensohnfrage neu untersucht (1916); 
Bornhiauser, Das Wirken des Christus, ete. (1921), pp. 30-1. 

41 Cf. above, n. 4. 

12 Reuetetasetae exegetisches Handbuch, Matthdus (st ed., 1836), 2nd 
ed., pp. 93-4. 

18 Untersuchungen iiber die evangelische Geschichte (1864), pp. 416-438. 

12 


THE PROBLEM OF THE ANTHROPOS 


born by the name in the non-apocalyptic passages, and because 
few would have been able to grasp in the use of the term the 
reference which would alone make the designation intelligible. 

Must we then have recourse to the radical measures of Schweit- 
zer in discounting the non-apocalyptic passages entirely, or must 
the question be left open? | 

Recently a new hypothesis has been advanced which, it is 
claimed, obviates these extreme measures, operates with all the 
positive results achieved in the past and offers a vital basis for 
Jesus’ adoption of the name and for its significance in both non- 
apocalyptic and apocalyptic passages. It endeavors to prove 
that the Son of Man, correctly ‘“‘the man,’’ whom we find in the 
Jewish and Christian documents, is but one particular phase of 
that figure to which our attention is to be directed in the ensuing 
pages and which appears in the Gnostic sources as ‘“‘the man”’ or 
‘“‘the Anthropos.”’ Reitzenstein, the author of this hypothesis, 
considers the ubiquitous Gnostic Anthropos to be a late but lucid 
manifestation of an ancient and ultimately Iranian figure which 
for centuries played an important part in the religious thought of 
the Orient. As such it was taken over into the Jewish apocalypses 
and became there the apocalyptic and messianic Bar Nasha. The 
Anthropos, however, is more than merely an eschatological figure. 
He is essentially a “‘messenger, . . . a stranger (in the world) 
faithfully executing the commands of his father and bringing (to 
the world) the word of life.”!4 His activity involves him in 
trials and suffering, from which he is delivered by God’s hand. In 
fulfilling his appointed task in spite of adversity, and receiving 
God’s salvation himself, he becomes the agent and means and 
ensample of humanity’s redemption, reappearing at the end of 
time as the head and pledge of the redeemed race. In these 
capacities he was known to Jewish sects in the days of Christ. 

Jesus in adopting the name “the man” at the beginning of his 
ministry, identified himself with this expected ‘‘man,”’ and desig- 
nated himself thereby as ‘‘the bearer of a message who in humility 
sojourns upon the earth.’’!° Its choice is but the expression of 

14 Reitzenstein, Das iranische Erlésungsmysterium (1921), p. 117. 

16 Thid., p. 118. 

13 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


his conviction that he has a mission to fulfill, and that an indis- 
soluble bond connects him with the Father, both convictions aris- 
ing from the innermost depths of his own personality. His 
statements that ‘‘the Son of Man must suffer” are entirely in 
accord with the current .conception of ‘‘the man,” though they 
have their basis in the historical circumstances of his life as well. 
From this view of himself as ‘‘messenger of God”’ he was led ulti- 
mately to messianic consciousness and to the use of “‘the man” 
in an apocalyptic sense, a transition that was intelligible to the 
people of his time, and was psychologically feasible so far as he 
himself was concerned. 

There is one great objection to an hypothesis of this kind. It 
reinterprets Biblical and Apocryphal sources by the use of outside 
material and secondary evidence. A number of efforts have 
been made to solve the Son of Man problem in this way, and all 
have failed miserably. In the early years of this century when 
the individuality of Jewish and Israelitic thought was being 
sacrificed on the altar of Babylonian civilization, Jeremias, !® 
Hommel,!’ Zimmern,!® and Winckler!9 “proved” the Baby- 
lonian origin of the Bar Nasha and thought thus to decide the 
issue. Another group took recourse to Iranian prototypes for 
the Son of Man. 

These efforts could be taken seriously only at a time when the 
novity of Oriental discovery destroyed ae sense of distance and 
proportion. 

The endeavor to link Son of Man and Anthropos goes bated to 
the days of the earlier “‘religionsgeschichtliche Schule.” It may 
be found in the earlier works of Bousset,?° Gressmann,?! and 


16 Art. Oannes in Roéscher, Lexicon der Mythologie (1899), vol. III, col. 
586 ff. 

17 Expository Times, vol. XI (1899-1900), pp. 341-5. 

#®Zimmern u. Winckler, Die Keilschrift u. d. Alte Testament, 3rd ed. 
(1903), p. 523. 

19 Aleanentehsche Forschungen, IIT, 4 (1904), pp. 296-301. 

20 Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im ntl. Zeitalter (1st ed., 1903), 
3rd ed. (1926), pp. 262-8. 

*1 Gressmann, Ursprung der israel.-jiid. Eschatologie (1905), pp. 363-4. 

14 


THE PROBLEM OF THE ANTHROPOS 


Clemen.*? In its first form it was as objectionable as the theories 
of the Assyriologists, but to-day it has entered upon a new phase 
which may possibly remove from it the stigma attaching to it in 
the days gone by. It must: now be considered in the light of the 
proto-Gnostic period of Oriental religious life, and in the light of 
the new sources at our disposal. Perhaps the Anthropos so 
universally familiar to the Orient at the end of the first Christian 
century, actually belongs to those survivals from ancient myth 
which bridge the gap between the early and the late East. His 
relation to the Jewish “manlike one” might then merit serious 
consideration. 3 

There are additional observations which also commend the 
hypothesis in general. In the first place, the ultimate origin of 
the apocalyptic ‘‘manlike one” has not as yet been determined. 
In the second place, the exclusive consideration of primary 
sources has, as we have seen, produced no final solution of the 
Son of Man problem as a whole. A further factor might possibly 
be added.. Ever since the days of the Apostolic Fathers orthodox 
Christianity has regarded Jesus’ use of the name Son of Man as 
an indication that he claimed to possess a human nature. This 
interpretation was undoubtedly erroneous. The only ones to 
dissent from it were the Gnostics. They associated Jesus as 
Son of Man with the Anthropos current in their circles.2* Did 
they, perchance, have the correct historical perspective? 

The inquiry into the Gnostic Anthropos, made doubly 
important by these considerations, will therefore involve a number 
of elements: 


1. The presentation of the source material relating to the Gnos- 
tic figure. 

2. The analysis and interpretation of this material with a 
view toward determining as far as possible the origin and antiquity 
of the Anthropos. 

3. The examination of the possible relations between the 


22C. Clemen, Die religionsgesch. Erkldrung des N. T. (1909), pp. 116-22. 
23 Cf. below, pp. 46-8, 51-3. 
. 15 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


Anthropos, the Jewish Son of Man and other figures of later 
Jewish religious thought. 

4. The discussion of the possible relations between the New 
Testament Son of Man and the Anthropos tradition. 


Proceeding to the first of these topics we begin by presenting 
that part of the tradition in which the Anthropos appears in his 
most highly developed form, namely the Manichean, and shall 
follow this with the consideration of the earlier and more primitive 
forms as found in Syrian and Egyptian syncretism and among the 
Mandeans. 


16 


CHAPTER II 
THE MANICHEAN PRIMAL MAN}! 


1. ‘‘Kwnow ye then, Mazda worshippers of Zartusht, that the 
fundamental statement of Mani was about the endlessness of the 
first principles, the intermediate one about their mingling, and 
the final one about the separation of light from darkness.”’ ? 

With these words Mardan-farukh has ably epitomized the 
action of the great drama which Manichean doctrine unfolds 
before us on the stage of the universe. Its principals, ‘‘God and 
Matter, Light and Darkness, Good and Evil, in all things entirely 
contrary forces,’’? became engaged of yore in bitter conflict when 
Satan, a horrible creation of the powers of evil, invaded the upper 
spheres of Light with hostile intent. + 


1 Our reconstruction of the Manichean doctrine is based not only upon the 
traditional sources, the works of Christian and Mohammedan writers, but 
also upon the newly discovered Manichean texts, published in the Sitzungs- 
berichte and Abhandlungen of the Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaften 
(quoted as SBA and ABA), as follows: F. W. K. Miller, Handschriftenreste in 
Estrangeloschrift aus Turfan I, SBA, 1904; II, ABA, 1904; Ein Doppelblatt 
aus einem manichdischen Hymnenbuch, ABA, 1912; A. von Le Coq, Ein 
-manichdisch-uigurisches Fragment, SBA, 1908; Koktwirkisches aus Turfan, 
SBA, 1909; Tuirkische Manichaia aus Chotscho, I, ABA, 1911; II, ABA, 1919; 
Chuastuanift, ABA, 1910. The new literature, embracing also “Un traité 
manichéen retrouwvé en Chine’’ published in translation by Chavannes and 
Pelliot (Journal Asiatique (1911)), is brilliantly discussed in P. Alfaric, Les 
Ecritures Manichéenes, 1920. New translation of the Chuastuanift (not 
accessible to me) made by W. Bang, Der Manichaeische Laien-Beichtspiegel, 
Museon, 36 (1923), pp. 1387-242. 

2 Shikand Gumanik Vijar, xvi, 4-6. Sacred Books of the East (abbrev. 
SBE), vol. XII. 

3 Titus of Bostra, Four books against the Manicheans, I, 5 (ed. Migne, 
Patrologia Graeca, vol. 18). 

4 An-Nadim, Fihrist, ed. Fliigel, Mani (1862), p. 86. 

17 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


A champion of the powers of Light, evoked to oppose this 
invasion, succeeds in carrying the war to the lower realms, but is 
worsted there, a portion of the light being taken captive and 
commingled with the opposite element. There follow efforts on 
both sides to redeem or restrain the vanquished light, incidental 
to which is the creation of the present cosmic system and its 
living creatures. For it is in man, finally, that the divine and 
the material elements come into closest union, and by man’s 
salvation that their separation is accomplished. But as salvation 
is never an automatic process, the higher self now dormant in 
the clutches of the material body, must first receive the knowledge 
of its former home and its destiny, before it is able to raise itself 
above the tyranny of the body and the world. Information of 
this sort comes to it directly or indirectly at the hand of some one 
of the messengers descending at intervals to the earth from above, 
namely, Adam, Seth, Noah, Buddha, Zarathushtra, Jesus and 
Mani.® When finally through the labors of these prophets, the sav- 
ing knowledge shall have been brought to the last of the elect, and 
they have been saved, the cosmos, its role in the plan of salvation 
fulfilled, will be consumed by a tremendous conflagration in which 
the powers of darkness are subdued forever. 

Our interest in this remarkable drama attaches itself to the 
person of the Primal Man, an actor who, contrary to what the 
name would suggest, is of great importance in the development 
of the plot. | 

2. When the King of the Realm of Light, so we are told, became 
cognizant of the efforts of Satan to invade his kingdom, he ema- 
nated from himself the Mother of Life, who in turn produced the 
Primal Man. Summoned forth in the hour of peril, the latter 
proceeds on his way to engage the enemy in battle, though not 
without first gathering about himself his five celestial powers, as 
a means of protection. Referred to as his robes,’ as pieces of 


®Ibn al-Murtada, quoting the Manichean Jazdanbacht, Kessler, Mani, 
(1889), p. 354; cf. also Abu’Ima‘ali, ibid., pp. 370-2. 
6 Bar Khoni, cf. Cumont, Recherches sur le Manichéisme, I (1908), p. 14. 
7T. IL. K. 2a, recto, ABA, 1911, p. 21 (Of Azrua); T. II. D. 1730, verso, 
ibid., p. 14 (of Chormuzta). 
18 


THE MANICHEAN PRIMAL MAN 


armor,® as his sons,® sometimes condensed into one person: ‘the 
five-fold God,’!° or again identified with the Primal Man,!! 
these powers actually represent the five individual elements or 
genera of heavenly nature and being. !? 

Between the champion of Light and the powers of evil a 
violent struggle then ensues. Its course is related in two distinct 
ways. According to the one version, the champion fares ill in 
the fulfillment of his mission. Only by continually altering his 
appearance can he elude the foe.'* In spite of his mutability, 
his armor is cruelly penetrated.'+ The Primal Man becomes 
temporarily insensate, and loses control of his mental faculties. !° 
Reawakening, he utters a prayer for release,!® and but for the 
fact that his prayer was heard and he was succored by heavenly 
powers, he would have been detained permanently in the clutches 
of the adversary.17 Even so a portion of his nature remains 
captive. !8 

The second version is in a different vein. According to the 


8 An-Nadim, Fliigel, p. 87; Hegemonius, Acta Archelai, c. 7 (ed. Beeson, 
Die griech. christ]. Schriftsteller, vol. 16, 1906). Epiphanius, Panarion, 
Heresy 66, c. 25 (Migne, Patr. Graeca, vol. 42). 

§ Bar Khoni, Cumont I, p. 16; ere Syrus, Prose Refutations, |xix 
(ed. Mitchell, 1912). 

0T. II. D. 178, IV, ABA, 1910, p. 8; M2, SBA, 1905, p. 1081; cf. Reitzen- 
stein, Das manddische Buch des Herrn der Grésse, Sitzungsberichte der Heidel- 
berger Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1919, No. 12, pp. 26-8. 

11 According to Al-Murtada, the angel (Primal Man) is formed of the 
five genera of God, Kessler, p. 352. In the Acta c. 7 and Epiphanius, 66, 25, : 
the text identifies and the context differentiates the elements and the Primal 
Man. 

12 An-Nadim, Fligel, p. 87, note 94. 

13Tbid., p. 88; Augustine, contra Faustum, II, 4, (ed. Zycha, Corpus 
Script. Eccles. x. vol. 25, 6, 1). 

4 Acta, c. 7. 

16 Bar Khoni, Cumont, I. p. 20. 

16 Tbid., and Acta, c. 7. cf. also the Gods Chroshtag and Padwachtag of 
T. II. D. 1730 recto, ABA, 1911, p. 13. 

7 Acta, c. 7. 

18 Al-Murtada, in spite of his leaning to the opposite interpretation, 
Kessler, p. 352; Acta, c. 7; An-Nadim, Fligel, pp. 88-9. 

19 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


Acta Archelai,19 Epiphanius,?° and Titus of Bostra?! the attack 
of the evil powers is offset by a clever strategem. The good 
God craftily and purposely exposes a portion of his power. By 
its absorption the powers of darkness are forced into submission. 72 
There are two differences between this and the previous account, 
first the absence of the note of tragedy, second the use of abstract 
terms in place of proper names. The latter peculiarity might 
seem to stamp the second rendering as a pale and distant echo of 
the first. That is, however, scarcely the case. In the sources upon 
which we rely for our knowledge of the concrete and mythological 
form of the story, there are elements that are out of harmony 
with the tenor of the narrative as a whole. Bar Khoni (8.c.A.D.), 
for instance, relates that the champion on his way to defeat was 
accompanied by an angel Nahash-shebet, who carried a crown of 
victory.7? An-Nadim (10.c.A.D.) says that the Primal Man cut 
the roots of the powers of evil in the midst of the disastrous con- 
flict.24 Ephraem Syrus (4.c.A.D.) has him actually take the 
hostile archons captive at this time.?° Bar Khoni and Augustine 
speak of a double of the Primal Man, namely Adamas Light, who 
is a warlike hero victorious in a struggle against demons.?® These 
details must be elements of a second account of the primordial 


1B O20: 

20 66, 44. 

21 Titus of Bostra, I. 12, We? . Baur, Das manichdische Religionssystem 
(1831), p. 56. 

2 Augustine, de Moribus Manichaeorum, II, 15, (ed. Migne, Patr. Lat., 
vol. 32), and Kessler, p. 352, n. 3. 

- ?3Cumont, I. p. 17, transcribes the name of the deity Nahashbat and finds 
that its meaning is not clear. If, as we assume, the shin is doubled, the name 
becomes intelligible and the deity is the personification of the “snake-staff,”’ 
the jagged representation of the lightning bolt, interpreted by the Manicheans 
as a lance, cf. below p. 101. 

*4 Fligel, p. 89. In T. II. D. 173b, recto, ABA, 1912, pp. 13-14, the Primal 
Man and the elements are rescued together, and thereafter, only, is the five- 
fold God separated from the champion. 

> Kessler, pp. 279-80. Does T. Ia, ABA, 1911, p. 19, Ormuzd defeating 
the demons belong into this connection? 

*° Bar Khoni, Cumont, I. pp. 22-3, p. 23, n. 2; Augustine, contra Faustum, 
xy,.6. 

20 


THE MANICHEAN PRIMAL MAN 


conflict, representing the Primal Man as a victorious champion. 
We have then to suppose that the story was told in two diverse 
forms, a supposition that finds adequate confirmation in the earlier 
strata of the Anthropos tradition. 

3. The episode of the primordial struggle is followed by that 
embracing the creation of the world at the hands of powers of 
the second and third evocation. During this procedure the 
Primal Man himself is almost entirely lost sight of. He plays a 
role, none the less, in so far as the divine element lost by him in 
the conflict, is imbedded at this juncture in all forms of animated 
existence, from plants to man. Our knowledge of this fact is 
derived in part from the accounts of creation, and in part from 
the premises upon which the liturgies of the Manicheans are 
founded. 

Creation, according to Mani, is the result of the efforts of 
divine and satanic powers to redeem or restrain the light-essence 
taken from the Primal Man. Particles of this essence repose in 
the bodies of a certain select few of the ‘‘archons,” the commanders 
of the powers of evil, who are stated to have devoured them in the 
conflict. Subsequent to the release of the Primal Man the powers 
of light enter upon a struggle with the archons. Those having 
(presumably) no light-essence within them, are slaughtered, 
their pelts being used to fashion the canopy of heaven, their 
corpses serving to form the earths.?” The others are fettered in 
the heavens where they appear as stars. Sensuously disturbed 
by the appearance of the powers of light, the fettered archons 
emit a portion of the captive element, which falls to the earth 
and there produces plant and animal life.28 Another portion 
elicited from them is fashioned into the sun and moon, vehicles 
serving the redemptive work of the good powers.?9 Fearing lest 
they lose all of their choice possession, the archons conclude to 
pool the remaining elements and deposit them in the person and 
custody of a champion, Adam, the creature of Saklas their chief 


27 Bar Khoni, Cumont, I. pp. 25-9; Ephraem, Kessler, p. 279. 
28 Acta, c. 8 and Epiphanius, 66, 32; Augustine, c. Faustum, VI, 8. 
2 Bar Khoni, Cumont, I. p. 29; Alexander of Lycopolis, c. 3, (ed. Migne, 
Patr. Graeca, vol. 18). 
21 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


and head.29 Thus animate existence the world over is related 

to the primordial champion, since it contains a portion of his 

being, and vice versa, the Primal Man dwells in the world, macro- 

see ee as the “world soul”? and microcosmically as the 
‘‘individual soul.” 

To think of the Primal Man as. dwelling simultaneously in 
heaven and on earth did not involve a contradiction for Mani. 
True to his Iranian heritage he divided the subjective or divine 
side of human existence into a number of distinct elements. 
What the Primal Man had lost, and what appears in man as the 
soul is but one of these elements, namely the “‘self”’ of the defeated 
champion. ?! 

This fact of the relation of man and Primal Man is evident, 
we have said, from the liturgies as well. ‘The Manichean service, 
so Reitzenstein has shown, was in the nature of a “‘mystery.”’ 
In it the individual and the community rehearsed in word and 
thought, and by rehearsing assured their redemption. The 
hymns and liturgies therefore have but one burden. They speak 
of the human soul captive in the clutches of matter, of messengers 
that are sent to awaken it from lethal sleep, of the cry for release 
and the promise of aid and, finally, of the homeward journey of 
the soul in company of its mentors. 32 

The ultimate premises of redemption as deaekisel in the 
Manichean liturgies are to be found in the Soul Drama. Yet 
they have one particular and individual trait. Everything that 
is said about the fate of the individual soul is so stated that it 
holds true as well of the world soul and of the experience of the 
Primal Man in his initial conflict. This peculiarity is not an 
accident, it is a constitutive element. Its basis is to be found in 
the idea that the world soul and the individual soul are the lost 
portion of the being of the Primal Man, macrocosmically and 
microcosmically considered. And herein is a further guarantee 


30 Augustine, de Natura Boni, 46 (ed. Zycha, Cor. Ser. Eccl. Lat., vol. 25, 
6. 2); Bar Khoni, Cumont, I. p. 42; Acta, 8; Alexander of Lycopolis, 4; 
Titus of Bostra, Preface to Bk. III; An-Nadim, Flugel, pp. 90-1. 
31 Cf. below, p. 30. 
2 Reitzenstein, Das iranische Erlésungsmysterium (1922), pp. 2-42. 
22 


THE MANICHEAN PRIMAL MAN 


of redemption, for just as the Primal Man was redeemed, so the 
souls of men, having their origin in him, will be redeemed. 

Up to this point we have been dealing with the fate of the lost 
element of the Primal Man in the period of creation. According 
to some of the ancient authors, at least, the primordial champion 
appears himself at one point in the proceedings, namely in connec- 
tion with the formation of Adam. 

Man, all sources agree, is the product of the Archons, whether 
created by them collectively or by their leader Saklas acting for 
all. To them he owes both his physical and psychical nature, for 
his creation is due to the efforts of the archons to find a safe 
repository for the captured light-essence they still possess. In 
his outward form, however, he bears a dual likeness, for he is 
fashioned at once in their own image and in the likeness of a 
power of light that had recently manifested itself to them.?? On 
the identity of the latter power the sources disagree. An extract 
from the Epistula Fundamenti of Mani, speaks only of a “‘great 
light that rises and causes the powers to tremble.”’ Disturbed 
by its appearance, Saklas the archon urges his fellows to create a 
champion of darkness “‘in the image of that great one who appeared 
in his glory.”?4 This ‘‘great light” is probably the sun. The 
sun, moreover, is the dwelling place of the ‘‘ Messenger” whose 
first manifestation, so we are told in other accounts, had disastrous 
results for the archons.?° Hence Bar Khoni may be quite right 
in maintaining that the divine power in the image of which man 
was made was the “‘ Messenger.’’3® 

On the other hand, the Acta Archelai?’ and Alexander of 
Lycopolis expressly state that man was formed in the image of 
the divine Primal Man.?8 Nor will the statement of the Epistula 
Fundamenti be found to disagree with this contention, for An- 

33 Acta, 12; Epiphanius, 66, 76; Titus of Bostra, Preface to Bk. III. 

34 Augustine, de Nat. Boni, 46. 

35 Particularly since he is to be considered as Mithras, cf. M. 583, ABA, 
1904, p. 20 and Reitzenstein, Die Géttin Psyche, Sitzungsberichte der Heidel- 
berger Akademie, 1917, No. 10, pp. 3-4. 

36 Cumont, I. p. 46. 

37 Acta, 7 and 12. 

88 Alexander of Lycopolis, 4 and 23. 

23 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


Nadim, at least, reports that after his release from the clutches of 
the archons, the Primal Man took up his residence in the sun.?9 
We have then at this point a double tradition once more. 

4, ‘‘Wisdom and deeds have always, from time to time been 
brought to mankind by the messengers of God. So in one age 
they were brought by the messenger called Buddha to India, in 
another by Zaradusht to Persia, in another by Jesus to the West. 
Thereupon this revelation has come down, this prophecy, in the 
last age, through me, Mani, the messenger of the God of truth to 
Babylonia.”’*° Thus spake Mani in the all but vanished Shapu- 
rakan, indeed a beautiful expression of the universality of his 
religious conceptions, and simultaneously a statement that leads 
us to the heart of his soteriology. 

The plurality of messengers is mentioned in other sources. 
Al-Murtada and Abu’lma‘ali (A.D. 1092) report that the Mani- 
cheans speak of seven prophets, Adam, Seth, Noah, Buddha, 
Zarathushtra, Jesus and Mani.*! The Chinese Manichean 
treatise fails to limit their number. They are here past, present 
and future. *? 

Yet the many messengers have the peculiarity of resolving 
themselves again into a single individual. The Shapurakan 
fragment just quoted speaks in its opening sentence of ‘“‘the 
messenger.’’ In the Chinese treatise, the messengers, past, present 
and future are but the representatives of a single type, the ‘ Envoyé 
de la Lumiére”’ whom the faithful adore with the words: 


Il n’y a que le Grand Saint, le Vénérable unique dans les trois 
mondes, qui soit universellement pour la multitude des étres 
vivants un pére et une mére, doués de compassion; il est aussi 
le grand guide . . . il est aussi le grand médecin . . . l’espace 
merveileux . . . le ciel supérieur . . . la terre véritable . . . la grande 


89 Alexander of Lycopolis, 4. cf. Baur, p. 140. The text reads merely “the 
man,” but this approximates the terminology used to refer to the Primal Man 
in Syrian and Egyptian Gnosticism. Accepted as a reference to the Primal 
Man by Fligel, p. 342. At the end of time we again find the Primal Man in 
the sun, An-Nadim, Fliigel, p. 100 and n. 292. 

40 Albiruni, Chronology of Ancient Nations, ed. Sachau (1879), p. 160. 

41 Cf. above, n. 5. 

42 Chavannes et Pelliot, p. 553. 

24 


THE MANICHEAN PRIMAL MAN 


mer...la montagne parfumée . . . la colonne précieuse de diamant 
... le pilote habile et sage sur la grande mer . . . la main secourable 
celui qui dans la mort donne la vie éternelle .. . .43 


Finally there is the statement preserved in the Formula of Abjura- 
tion, acceptance of which was required of those entering the Church 
and leaving Manicheism, to wit, “I anathematize those who 
declare Zaradas (Zarathushtra), Buddha, Christ, Mani and the 
Sun to be one and the same person.’’ 44 

On the basis of this testimony Mani’s soteriology should be 
evident. The various prophets and messengers are diverse mani- 
festations of a single power or person of the world of light. But 
who is the person into whom they resolve themselves? Reitzen- 
stein finds an answer to this question in a difficult Turfan fragment. 
As translated by Andreas, the fragment conveys the following 
message: | 


Thereupon God... (created)? ... at first that human being, 
the primal one (and) primal Reason and Knowledge, and year 
by year and age by age he thereafter sent Reason and Knowledge 
into the (world). Even in that last age, close before the restitu- 
tion (of the world) ...God....” % 


The translation of Andreas, itself a correction of an earlier render- 
ing by F. W. K. Miiller, has not solved the difficulties of the text 
in their entirety and is thus open to question.*® Yet so much 
seems to be clear, namely that the God of the realm of Reason 
(the Primal Man) and the messengers are brought into intimate 
contact with one another. Reitzenstein considers this evidence 
of the fact that the coming and identity of the messengers is 
intimately bound up with the person of the Primal Man.*’ They 
might then be his manifestations. 


43 Tbid., p. 586. 

44 Kessler, p. 362. 

45 Fragment 473a, ABA, 1904, p. 22, given here in Andreas’ translation, as 
found in Reitzenstein, MB, p. 50. 

46 Prof. A. V. W. Jackson considers the whole fragment eschatological and 
would supply ‘will appear”’ in the first lacuna. 

47 Reitzenstein, MB, p. 51. 

25 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


A portion of the index of a Manichean hymnal throws addi- 
tional light on the subject. Among the titles in the table of 
first-lines we find, in Miiller’s translation, the following: 


400. Gekommen bist du mit Heil, der Geist... 

401. Gekommen bist du mit Heil der Geist des Lichtes... . 
402. Gekommen ist dieser Geist der gefesselte .... 

403. Gekommen is dieser Geist der erléste.... 

404. Gekommen bist du, edler Geist .... 

405. Gesegnet bist du, grosser Geist, anfiinglicher ... . 

406. Gesegnet bist du Geist des Lichtes.... 

407. Gesegnet bist du Geist des Lichtes.... 

408. Gesegnet bist du Geist, befreiter ... .48 


In view of the thematic arrangement of the index, there is no 
reason to argue for a variation in the person referred to in these 
hymns. There is only one divine being of which we know that it 
was pre-existent, once fettered, now freed and redeemed, namely 
the Primal Man. That he is called “spirit”? should present no 
difficulty. The term, except in such cases where it is restricted 
by the use of a modifier, as in the case of ‘‘the Living Spirit,”’ is 
a broad designation applicable to deity in general.*9 If then the 
fettered and released spirit is the Primal Man, the fact that he 
also comes to man bringing blessings and salvation from the world 
of Light, identifies him with the messengers, the saviors. 

One of the Salemann fragments (S. 9, as noted below) neces- 
sitates a similar conclusion, in spite of the difficulties inherent in 
the text. 

At the primordial revolt of the devils, we are told, Ormuzd 
descends to the lower spheres and there loses possession of the 
soul, an element of his body-guard. The powers of evil imprison 
her in the impurity of a material body. But Ormuzd takes pity 
on the souls (pl.?) and ‘‘causes (them?) to descend into the 
bodies (?), down to the earth.’ Thereupon he proceeds to 
instruct the soul opening her eyes revealing to her everything 
that was and shall be, and demonstrating the fact that Ormuzd 


48 ABA, 1912, p. 27. 
49 Reitzenstein, IE, p. 10. 
26 


THE MANICHEAN PRIMAL MAN 


had not created bodily pollution and had not himself fettered the 
soul. The trusting soul of the blessed, assured of the reward of 
resurrection, believed the wisdom of Ormuzd, and accepted the 
proferred instruction at his hand. This results in her final re- 
demption. 5 

Clearly Ormuzd has here, as otherwheres, taken the place of 
the Primal Man.°! What we hear of his ‘“‘causing the soul to 
be lowered to the body”’ is entirely at variance with the statement 
made a few lines later, that Ormuzd is not responsible for bodily 
pollution. Reitzenstein has suggested that the text is corrupt 
and that it should be read ‘‘he lowered himself to the earth in the 
form of human beings,’’ an emendation which, if correct, would 
clarify the sense of the passage, and directly identify the Primal 
Man (here Ormuzd) and the messengers.°? Even without the 
emandation the fragment conveys the idea that the primordial 


50 Bulletin de l’Académie de St. Petersbourg, Ser. VI, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 
12-13. The text is replete with difficulties of no small caliber, particularly 
in the important phrase “He caused them? to descend.” Bartholomae, Zur 
Kenntniss d. mittelir. Mundarten, III (SBA. 1920), p. 44 does not solve the 
problem, but inclines to a causative. Prof. Jackson would like to render ‘‘he 
allowed himself to descend.’ Waldschmidt and Lentz, Die Stellung Jesu, 
ABA (1926), p. 25, paraphrase “er selbst steigt herab.”’ 

51 Le Coq (ABA, 1911, n. p. 40) and Chavannes et Pelliot (p. 513, n. 1) 
first showed that the Turfan texts identify Ormuzd (Ahura Mazda) and the 
Primal Man. This identification, accepted by Reitzenstein (Psyche, pp. 4-5) 
was questioned by Scheftelowitz (Hntstehung der manichdischen Religion, etc., 
1922, pp. 63-4). The latter endeavored to show that the “five-fold God, the 
son of the God Chormuzta,” i.e., the five elements, alone comprise the Primal 
Man. The position is untenable. The mere fact that the elements have been 
personified does not prove that they represent a subordinate emanation 
of Ormuzd. Baur had a better conception of the subtle relations between 
the members of the Manichean pleroma when he said: ‘“‘The Manichean 
Christ, then, owes his existence to the person of the Primal Man, but we 
must guard against considering him an emanation of the Primal Man, to wit 
an aeon descended from him and subordinate to him” (pp. 208-9). Indeed, 
far from being inferior to the God Ormuzd, the Primal Man has a tendency to 
rise above him and to be identified with the supreme deity Zervan (cf. T. II. 
K. 2a, recto, ABA, 1911, p. 21). 

52 Reitzenstein IE, pp. 38-9 and 39, n. 1; so too Prof. Jackson, cf. above 
n. 50, 

a. 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


champion and the saviors of men are one and the same 
person, °3 

5. If the conclusions drawn from these texts are correct they 
should be confirmed by what the sources relate concerning the 
individual messengers. 

In the case of Adam, Seth and Noah such. confirmation is 
lacking. Apart from the statements of Al Murtada and Abu- 
’Ima‘ali, these persons are mentioned, Adam, only a few times, °4 
Seth but once,®5 and Noah not at all. The reason for this is no 
doubt to be found in the fact that the antediluvians were too 
remote from the hopes of Mani’s day to have deserved more than 
random attention. Consequently, the lack of further information 
concerning their relation to the Primal Man does not constitute 
disproof of the conclusion drawn above. 

6. Buddha and Zarathushtra are one step nearer than the 
earlier messengers in the matter of interest. True their names 
are mentioned only rarely in the West, but in the Eastern docu- 
ments, so far as they are intelligible to an uniniate, there is at 
least one trace of the kind of evidence required in the present 
discussion. It relates to the second of the two figures and is 
contained in the famous “ Zarathushtra Fragment.” 5 7 

Cast into the form of a hymn presenting to the believer instruc- 
tion at the hand of the prophet of ancient Iran, the text relates 
how the ‘‘redeemer, the very Zarathushtra himself,’’ in converse 
with his “self” (grév) that is drunken with-sleep, commingled 
with matter and held in the embrace of death, encourages it to 
look upon him, to be mindful of its divine origin, and, placing a 


53 Cf. also M2, recto, col. 1, SBA, 1905, p. 1081 and Reitzenstein MB, 
pp. 26-7 where Ormuzd promises to save the captive light elements. 

54 Augustine, de Mor. Manichaeorum, 19, cf. Baur, pp. 154-5; Bar Khoni, 
Cumont, I, pp. 46-7; An-Nadim, Fliigel, pp. 91-3. 

55 Fligel, p. 92 and n. 184. 

56 Officially designated as M7 but not yet officially published. Quoted in 
full in the translation of Andreas by Reitzenstein, Hellenistesche Mysterien- 
religionen, 2nd ed. (1920), pp. 126-7; IE., p. 3; Scheftelowitz, Entstehung, 
p. 72; Gressmann, Das religionsgeschichtliche Problem, etc., Zeitschrift, f. 
Kirchengeschichte, vol. XLI (1922), pp. 156-7. 

28 


THE. MANICHEAN PRIMAL MAN 


crown upon its head, to follow him who brings salvation and life 
from above. >? 

The fragment has become the center of an extended con- 
troversy, partly because its importance was originally over- 
emphasized, and partly because of the real difficulty of determin- 
ing the identity of the imprisoned “self”? and of the ‘‘Wahre 
Zarathushtra.”’ Recent interpreters consider the latter the 
heavenly image or double of the prophet, his heavenly ego, after 
the analogy of the Iranian Fravashi and Daena.°® If Gressmann 
be correct, the fragment means to say, that the prophet has died 
and that in death his heavenly image (daena) comes to meet him 
and assist him in the difficult task of ascending to his heavenly 
home. Of these difficulties of ascent, the soul, self or earthly ego 
(whichever translation we adopt) of Zarathushtra complains, 
only to be encouraged by the heavenly mentor. 

The rendering of Gressmann is possible, but it fails to do justice 
to the instructive and devotional purposes which the text served *? 
and to account for the nature of the embarrassment that has over- 
taken the captive self.°° Scheftelowitz has been led by this 
difficulty, perhaps, to regard the moment pictured in the hymn as 
that in which the Fravashi of Zarathushtra comes to the soul 


57 The word “grév’”’ used in the text has been the source of difficulties 
First rendered ‘‘spirit’”’ and thought of as being used in place of giydn ‘“‘soul”’ 
in translating Aramaic ruha (covering both spirit and soul) it is now rendered 
“self”? by both Reitzenstein and Gressmann the immortal portion of a human 
being, that portion which after death serves as the body of the Fravashi. 
ZKG, vol. XLI, p. 156. Waldschmidt and Lenz. Die Stellung Jesu, ABA, 
1926 pp. 11. n. 1, 41, 70-77, etc., always translate grév as “‘ich,”’ which is not 
so good a rendering. 

88 Gressmann, ZKG, vol. XLI, pp. 156-8; Scheftelowitz, Entstehung, 
pp. 72-4. 

59 No exemplary or vicarious significance attaches to the death of Zara- 
thushtra or Mani in Manicheism, as it does to the death of Christ in Chris- 
tianity. As a general statement of the events following upon the death of 
an individual, the sentiments of the Z. fragment are not intelligible. Cf. the 
account of An-Nadim, Fliigel, pp. 100-1. 

6 The difficulties attending the heavenward journey of the soul are those 
experienced in passing the hostile planetary powers. Cf. Wendland, Die 
hellenistische-rémische Kultur, 2nd ed. (1912), pp. 170-6. 

29 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


asleep in the body, intent on awakening it so that the prophet 
may enter upon his missionary and redemptive labors.®! Of 
course the Fravashi is the mentor of the human soul®? but its 
presence and operation is taken for granted from the time of 
birth like that of the conscience. It is difficult, therefore, to see 
why one particular moment of its action should deserve such 
extended attention, and why an account of such a moment should 
be cast into the form of a hymn. Surely those who sang the 
hymn in their devotions were not destined to be messengers of 
Zarathushtra’s type. They could learn but little from an account 
of how he was awakened to his prophetic office. ®? 

Reitzenstein, following a reverse method of procedure, begins 
by identifying the being captive in the clutches of death, born in 
a different world, yet mingled in matter and drunken with sleep. 
A comparison between the Manichean and Mandean texts reveals 
to him that the being usually referred to in this way is the soul, 
or in Manichean terminology the lost element of the Primal Man. ®4 
To the soul, then, Zarathushtra comes as the messenger of God, 
awakening and redeeming it. But if the soul is the “self” of 
Zarathushtra, then the latter is certainly the manifestation of the 
Primal Man, come to redeem his loss. &® 

61 Enistehung, p. 74. 

62 Dhalla, Zoroastrian Theology (1914), p. 144. 

63 The text quoted by Scheftelowitz in substantiation of his interpretation, 
namely T. II. D. 178, may depict the moment of death as well as that of the 
religious awakening. Prophets are awakened to their calling by other means 
than those referred to in the Z. fragment, Adam, for instance, by the appear- 
ance of Jesus (Fliigel, p. 91) and Mani by a revelation of the King of the World 
of Light (ibid., p. 84). 

64 TH, pp. 2-10, 99, 135. 

65 Reitzenstein (IE, p. 4) considers the Z. fragment a witness to a pre- 
Manichean form of the Anthropos theology in which Zarathushtra is the sole 
messenger to the ‘‘self’’ or world soul. This seems to be out of harmony with 
the opening lines of the text, which aim to give the “testimony of the fathers 
of old,” i.e., to make the appropriation of salvation in the present (at the 
hands of Mani) more vivid by reference to the experience of previous genera- 
tions. R. has been led to his interpretation by the consideration of the 
“crown of light”’ appearing in the text. The crown appears in Manicheism 
as one of the ornaments which the soul of the elect receives after the death of 
the body. (Fligel, p. 92; Miiller, ABA, 1904, pp. 47, 98; Le Coq, cited by 

30 


THE MANICHEAN PRIMAL MAN 


Thus interpreted, the hymn may well be instructive and 
uplifting to the faithful, for the imprisoned soul is equally the 
world and the individual soul, and the salvation of former days 
is the guarantee of a present salvation. So interpreted, too, the 
Zarathushtra fragment confirms the statements already quoted 
that the messengers are the manifestations of the Primal Man. 

7. The peculiar idea of the divided Zarathushtra to which 
the theology connected with the Primal Man gives rise, finds its 
counterpart in the Manichean conception of Jesus. 

‘““How many Christs have you?”’ exclaims Augustine, our best 
authority on Mani’s Christology. ‘Is there one whom you call the 
“mortal” (patibilis), whom the earth conceives and brings forth 
by the power of the Holy Spirit .. . and another crucified by the 
Jews under Pontius Pilate, and a third whom you divide between 
- sun and moon? Or is it one and the same person, a part of whom 
is confined within the trees, to be released by the help of the other 
part which is not confined?’ 66 

Even though there is a note of scorn in the passage from 
Augustine, it presents in admirable fashion the gist of the Mani- 
chean Christology. Like Zarathushtra, Jesus is to Mani a divided 
personality. He manifests himself in the first place, as the first- 
born of the unspeakable and most holy majesty, as the ‘“omnium 
luminum rez,”®* and a form of the ‘massa lucidissimae molis 
Dei.”®*® As such he is the Son of God ®? and can be invoked to- 
gether with Ormuzd.’° His dwelling-place is the ‘‘visible 
light,”’’! characterized by power and wisdom,’? namely the Sun 
Reitzenstein, IE; p. 26, etc.) For the soul to place such a crown on its head 
does not necessarily signify that its earthly life has ended. In their ceremonial 
the Mandeans placed ‘‘crowns” on their heads, anticipatingly symbolizing 
their election. (Lidzbarski, Manddische Liturgien (1920), pp. 4-5 for instances. 
Such ceremonial action may have played a part in Manicheism and find its 
reflection in our text. 

66 ¢. Faustum, XX, 11. 

67 Secundinus, Epistula ad Augustinum, c. 1 (ed. Migne, P.L., vol. XLII). 

6 Confessiones, V. 10 (ed. Migne, P.L., vol. XXXII, col. 716). 

© M18, ABA, 1904, p. 34. 

70 'TM327, SBA, 1909, p. 1053. 

71 ¢, Re auien, XX, 2. 

72 Tbid., cf. also Baur, pp. 206-8. The wisdom of the moon-god is men- 
tioned Risin T. II. D. 171, left col., ABA, 1911, p. 24. 

31 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


and the Moon.’? Hence he may be said to be ‘per solem et 
lunam distentus.” 74 

It is this Christ who at the appointed time descends to earth, 
taking on, without incarnation, the guise of human form, and 
thus appearing as a man, though not polluting the purity of his 
divine nature.’?° Both the assumed likeness and the immutable 
personality behind it play a part in his work. The latter imparts 
to men a saving knowledge of the light,’® while the former sym- 
bolically enacts the drama of life, from birth through suffering to 
death.77 In that the Christ was able to play the part, in con- 
junction with his guise, quite without injury to himself, he has 
won a victory over Satan and has given man the surest guarantee 


of the validity of his message. ’® 

In the second place, Christ manifests himself as the Jesus 
Patibilis. Augustine is again our best authority on the subject. 
Of Faustus, the Manichean, he says: 


You represent your fabulous Christ, the son of your fabulous 
Primal Man, as bound up in all the stars. For you say that he 
was mingled with the princes of darkness in that conflict in 
which your Primal Man himself contended with the race of 
darkness, as a result of which the world was built from the 
princes of darkness taken captive by means of this mingling... 
According to your profane fancies, Christ is not only mingled with 
heaven and all the stars, but conjoined and compounded with 
the earth and all its products.” 


This Jesus who may be found in all plants, trees and fruit, “‘omni 
suspensus ex ligno’”’®® as well as in human beings, was a novelty 


73.M176, ABA, 1904, p. 60 and Acta, 18. The moon-god and sun-god are 
mentioned as one person in T. II. D. 169, ii, ABA, 1919, p. 10, and T. II. Y. 
60a, ABA, 1910, p. 16. 

74 ¢, Faustum, XX, 11. 

75 Acta, 54; c. Faustum, ITI, 1. 

76 contra Fortunatum Disputatio, 3. (ed. Zycha, Cor. Ser. Eccl. Lat., vol. 
XXV, 6, 1). 

77 ¢, Faustum, XXIX, 1 (of birth); ibid., XXIII, 3 (of baptism);; ibid., 
XXX, 6; cf. Baur, pp. 390-404. 

78 Evodius, de Fide, 28 (ed. Zycha, Cor. Ser. Eccl. Lat., vol. XXV, 6, 2). 

79 c, Faustum, II, 4-5. 

80 Ibid., XX, 11. 

32 


THE MANICHEAN PRIMAL MAN 


even to the christologically developed minds of the Western 
Fathers. They lacked the clue that would lead to his identifica- 
tion. Yet from the above passage it should be clear to us that 
the Jesus Patibilis is the life principle indwelling in the world, the 
divine element imprisoned in material existence since the primordial 
conflict, in other words the lost “‘self’’ of the Primal Man.®! 
This at once stamps the transcendent Christ as that portion of 
the champion which returned to heaven, an identification that is 
confirmed by his position as first-born, and his residence in the 
sun. Indeed the conception of the divided Primal Man is directly 
responsible for the partition of the divine Christ, a feat never 
attempted in other circles than the Manichean, so far as I know. 
Once more, then, a messenger proves to be but a remanifestation 
of the Primal Man. This was of course what Baur perceived 
when he pointed to the Primal Man as the concrete representa- 
tion of the divine power which is mingled with matter,®? to the 
Jesus Patibilis as the form in which that divine element presents 
itself to men®? and to the Christ of the sun and moon as the light 
essence of the Primal Man which remained pure when he was 
overwhelmed by the powers of darkness. 4 

It is interesting to see how the identification of the Christ and 
the Primal Man has influenced the text of the Gospels as they 
were current among the Manicheans. The rendition of Mt. 
25, 35-6 is a case in point. 


Turfan Text Current Text 
I was hungered and ye gave me meat, Vs. 35a. 
I was thirsty and ye gave me drink, Vs. 35b. 
I was naked and ye clothed me, Vs. 36a. 
I was sick and ye visited me, Vs. 36b. 
I was fettered and by you I was freed, Lacking. 
I was in prison and by you was I redeemed, I was in prison and 


ye came to me. 
I was a stranger, a wanderer, by you was I taken |I was a stranger and 
in.’ ye took me in. 


81 As we have already seen the lost “self” is frequently called the “son of”’ 
the Primal Man cf. above, p. 19. 
82 Baur, p. 69. 83 Tbid., p. 75. 84 Tbid., p.. 209. 
88 M475, verso, ABA, 1904, pp. 12-13. 
33 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


The Christ who is fettered, freed and redeemed, 1s the imprisoned 
“self” of the Primal Man to whom salvation comes through the 
piety of the individuals in whom he has his being. 

8. The last of the messengers of whom the Formula of Abjura- 
tion says that they are the manifestations of one person, is none 
other than Mani himself. To prove that he too is to be considered 
a revelation of the Primal Man is more difficult, because of the 
fact that there is in every religion a discrepancy between that 
which its founder said of himself and that which his disciples 
claimed for him. 

Certainly the prophet of Babylon laid no claim to that type 
of existence and divinity which he imputed to the transcendent 
Christ. His genealogy, frankly stated, shows no effort to connect 
his birth with divine intervention.’® Spiritual insight came to 
him not as a matter of natural endowment, but by special revela- 
tion.’ The name with which he generally introduced himself, 
in the West at least, was, “‘an apostle of Jesus Christ.”°° He 
thought of himself as the one divinely called and inspired to present 
in its unadulterated form the truth of Jesus’ message, a message 
long since garbled and confused by self-appointed interpreters. ®9 
To this extent he may have been willing to call himself “the 
Paraclete,’”’9° the guide into all truth. 

A broad gulf divides that which Mani said of himself and what 
his followers made of him. By them he is spoken of as “ First- 
born, mighty commander, my Lord Mani”?! as ‘one born under 
a resplendent star in the family of sovereigns” ®? as a “‘son of 
the Gods,’’°? or directly as “‘Mari (Mani) God.’”’9* He is men- 
tioned in one breath with “ Jesus, the Virgin of Light and 


86 Fliigel, p. 83, cf. Augustine, contra Epistulam Fundamenti, 8 (ed. Zycha, 
Cor. Scr. Eccl. Lat., vol. XXV.) 

87 Fliigel, p. 84. 

8c. Faustum, XIII, 4 ; c. Epist. Fund., 5-6; 8. 

89 Cf. Baur, pp. 378-90. 

°c. Epist. Fund., 6; 8; 9 et al.; cf. Baur, pp. 370-2. 

% T. II. D. 178, iv, ABA, 1910, p. 8, cf. Reitzenstein, MB, pp. 47-8. 

* M7, ABA, 1904, p. 79; cf. Scheftelowitz, Entstehung, p. 15. 

3 M32, M311, ABA, 1904, pp. 62 and 66; ff Scheftelowitz, p. 37. 

4 M64, ABA, 1904, p. 92. 


34 


THE MANICHEAN PRIMAL MAN 


Mithras’’®° and is said to perform the works of Ormuzd, the son 
of Zervan.?® Manicheans put into his mouth the words ‘‘Come 
am I, the first-born, the intermediary”’®’ or “I am the first 
stranger, the son of the God Zervan, the child of Kings.’ 98 

Clearly Mani has been elevated by his followers above the 
position to which he himself aspired. What else could they have 
considered him to be than the foremost and complete revelation 
of that power which he had taught them to see working in the 
person of the messengers, in other words the Primal Man. ‘True, 
no one speaks of him as the Primal Man directly, but neither does 
anyone directly identify Zarathushtra or Jesus with that figure. 
As “First-born” in the sense of Monogenes,?? as the son of 
Zervan, and as the ‘‘stranger”’ from the other world he certainly 
approximates the character and position of the primordial cham- 
pion. As “‘medius solis et lunae”’ he even resides in the dwelling 
of the Primal Man.!°° 

From the general statements presented at the beginning of 
this discussion, as well as from the data regarding the Manichean 
conception of Zarathushtra, Jesus and Mani, it should then be 
evident that Manichean soteriology regards the divine messengers 
as manifestations of the Primal Man. What the latter redeems, 
namely the macrocosmic or microcosmic soul, is thus actually 
himself, the lost element of the one divided divine personality. 1°! 


% M38, ABA, 1904, p. 77. 

96 M10, cf. Reitzenstein, MB, pp. 46-7. 

97 M3, ABA, 1904, p. 80. 

98 Mliturg, ABA, 1904, p. 29; ef. Reitzenstein, IE, p. 10. 

% So Irenaeus, I, 1 et al.; cf. Bousset, HP, pp. 161; 171; 267, n. 2; not 
with Scheftelowitz recalling the title of the Babylonian kings, Entstehung, 
pp. 14-5. 

100 Secundinus, Epistula ad Augustinum, 3. (ed. Patr. Lat, vol. XLII, 
col. 574.). 

101 We are not ready to say whether the Primal Man plays any part in the 
deliverance of the individual soul above that of proclaiming its final liberation 
and of assisting in its purification and transfer from the moon and sun heaven- 
ward. At the moment of death, we are told, there appear to the departing 
soul the “wise conductor, the three other gods and the maiden in the likeness 
of the soul.” Reitzenstein regards the last as the representative of the 
Primal Man, a representative that appears in female form because the soul is 

35 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


Therein lies for the individual believer the assurance of salvation 
and for the divine world the guarantee of a final victory over the 
powers of darkness, their enemies since the beginning. 

9. In the course of the events connected with the end of the 
world the Primal Man once more appears. What we actually 
know about those events is very little, considering the fact that 
in Manicheism as in Christianity, the final catastrophe is the 
climax of the drama of existence. The arrival of the end is 
determined by the completion of the process of liberating from 
matter those light elements that are worthy of salvation. As 
long as this process is under way the celestial portion of the Primal 
Man is located in the Sun where it is instrumental in cleansing 
and transmitting heavenward the redeemed souls (the earthly 
self). From this place, too, it issues forth into the world in the 
forms of saviors.!°? Once the process has been completed, the 
cosmos, itself nothing more than the machinery for the process of 
salvation, is consumed in a great conflagration and the powers of 
evil are isolated for ever. At this juncture the divine powers who 
have taken their stand within the cosmos during its existence, are 
relieved of their duties and gather before the throne of majesty. 
“The Primal Man” so An-Nadim reports, ‘“‘comes from the world 
of Capricornus (the North), while the Spirit of Life comes from 
the West.”’?!°3 Under the name of Ormuzd, the same is recorded 
of him by a Turfan text.!9°4 Before the throne, then, he finally 
meets his lost ‘‘self,”’ and, we may suppose, is united to it. Two 


considered a female. We should be inclined to believe that the “maiden” 
is still merely the Iranian Daena of Yasht 22, 1-36, even as the “three other 
gods” are Mithra, Srosha and Rashnu and the “wise conductor” is probably 
Naresap or Norisof, the Iranian Neryosang. (Cf. Pavry, The Zoroastrian Doc- 
trine of a Future Life, 1926, pp. 46-7, where A. V. W. Jackson is cited.) That 
An-Nadim has confused the “maiden” and the “wise conductor” (Fliigel, p. 
100) does not argue to the contrary. (Cf. on the discussion Reitzenstein, 
IE., pp. 28-42, and also below, p. 69.) 

102 Fliigel, pp. 100-1. 

103 Tbid., pp. 101-2. From Fliigel’s translation it would appear as though 
the Primal Man comes from three directions at once, or via three points of the 
compass. Correct by reference to Kessler, p. 400. 

104 M470, ABA, 1904, pp. 19-20; ef. Alfaric, II, p. 52. 

36 


THE MANICHEAN PRIMAL MAN 


fragments give us at least a glimpse of this important meeting. 
The one speaks of the Mother of the Pious, the God Ormuzd and 
the five elements coming jointly to the throne from the north. 195 
The other recounts the order in which the assembled stand before 
the presence and lists there, as the first, the God Ormuzd together 
with the last God, the Mother of the Pious, the Friend of Light, 
Norisof (Neryosang), Bam, the Living Spirit, Jesus Ziwa, the 
Maiden of Light, and the “‘Great Soul.’ 1° 

This, then, is what the sources have to tell us concerning the 
Manichean Primal Man, the first link in our chain of evidence 
regarding the Gnostic Anthropos. It is a remarkable figure, 
undoubtedly, and one that is of central importance in cosmogony, 
anthropology, soteriology and eschatology. Indeed one might 
say without exaggeration, that the Manichean theology is an 
Anthropos Theology. 

In its Manichean version, the Anthropos tradition is revealed 
to us in its most advanced form. It has been polished and adapted 
and blended into a beautifully codrdinated unit. Having that 
finished product before us, we can endeavor to trace whatever 
signs of its growth and presence are visible in the data concerning 
the earlier Gnostic systems of the Orient. 


105 M583, ABA, 1904, p. 20; cf. Reitzenstein, Psyche, p. 4. 

106 M2, SBA, 1905, p. 1081; cf. Reitzenstein, Psyche, pp. 4-5 and his 
remark, p. 5, n. 1. It is possible that the Primal Man is the author of the 
great cry that is uttered over the world, the cry which is the sign that the 
consummation is at hand. (M473b, ABA, 1904, p. 22). Reitzenstein has 
maintained, in connection with another fragment (M4, ABA, 1904, pp. 49-52) 
that Mani is the one who utters the cry (IE. pp. 16-7). The cry referred to 
in M4 is probably a cry on earth, the annunciation of the message of salvation. 
The cry of M473 is one that reverberates through the universe, and should 
be uttered by a cosmic potency, the savior in his cosmic role, 1.e., the divine 
self of the Primal Man. In M472, ABA, 1904, pp. 17-8, the ‘‘Sun-God’”’ 
seems to be mentioned in this connection. That would be a confirmation of 
our contention, for the Primal Man resides in the sun. 


37 


CHAPTER Ill 


THE ANTHROPOS IN HELLENISTIC AND WESTERN 
GNOSTIC SYSTEMS 


THE Primal Man who played so important a role in the Mani- 
chean theology of the third century was known also to Gnosties 
outside the confines of Mesopotamia at least a century before 
Mani. To give an adequate account of the character of the figure 
as it appeared in the earlier days is by no means easy. In the 
first place we have to consider not one but at least ten individual 
interpretations of the one personage. In the second place our 
knowledge of these manifestations is derived, not from an extensive 
body of direct evidence and from quotations of Fathers intimately 
connected with the Gnostic movements, but from scanty first-hand 
material and from the writings of professional Heresiologists 
whose endeavor to refute at once all Gnostic “error” permitted 
neither detailed report nor study of any one or more of the forms 
of this movement. 


1. Unsatisfactory as it is, the evidence shows that the Anthro- 
pos was a well-known figure in the two great centers of syncretistic 
thought, Egypt and Syria. According to the Fathers, he appeared 
in Egypt in the systems of Valentinus,! his pupils Ptolemaeus? 
and Marcus,? and the Barbelognostics of Irenaeus I. 29. What 
the heresiologists relate as evidence for the Valentinian system is 
borne out by quotations from Valentinus’ writings preserved by 


1Trenaeus, adversus Haeres., I. 11, Hippolytus, Philosophowmena, VI, 
21-37, Epiphanius, Panarion, 31, 32. Epiphanius uses the lost Greek original 
of Irenaeus. 

* Irenaeus, op. cit., I. 1-10, Hippolytus, VI, 38. pais again uses 
Irenaeus, Panarion, 31, 9-32. 

3 Trenaeus, I. 13-21, Hippolytus, VI, 39-55. 

38 


THE ANTHROPOS IN WESTERN GNOSTIC SYSTEMS 


Clement of Alexandria* and a source quoted by Epiphanius.® 
The account concerning the Barbelognostics is confirmed by the 
recently discovered Gospel of Mary® and by the great Coptic 
Gnostic documents.’ Apart from this Gnostic evidence stands 
that of the first tract of the Corpus Hermeticum, commonly 
known as the Poimandres, and of the prophet Bitys, culled by 
Reitzenstein from the writings of an obscure alchemist Zosimus 
and from Jamblichus.® Arranging our witnesses chronologically, 
the Egyptian provenience of our figure is attested to by the Coptic 
Gnostie works, Bitys, the Valentinians, Valentinus, the Barbelo- 
gnostics of Irenaeus, the Gospel of Mary and the Poimandres. 9 
The evidence covers a period from the middle of the third to the 
first half of the second Christian century. 

In Syria, according to the Fathers, the figure played a part in 
the systems of Monoimus,!° the Christian and pagan Naasenes!! 
and the pre-Valentinian Gnostics, probably Ophites, of Irenaeus 
I. 30. Direct evidence we have only for the conceptions of the 
Naasenes, from a document quoted in extenso by Hippolytus. !2 


4 Collected and accessible conveniently in Hilgenfeld, Ketzergeschichte des 
Urchristentums (1884), pp. 293-301. 

5 Epiphanius, 31, 5-6. 

6C. Schmidt, Ein vorirenaeisches gnostisches Original-werk in koptischer 
Sprache, Sitzb. Ber. Akad., 1896, pp. 839-47. 

7 Namely the Pistis Sophia, the Books of Jeu and the unnamed document 
of the Codex Brucianus, transl. C. Schmidt, Greichische christliche Schrift- 
steller, vol. 13 (1905), English translation of the “Pistis Sophia”? by George 
Horner, 1924. 7 

8 All accessible in Reitzenstein; Poimandres (1904) pp. 102-8. The Hermetic 
tract now edited and translated in W. Scott, Hermetica (1924), vol. I. 

° For the dating of the Poimandres cf. W. Scott, Hermetica, vol. II. p. 12, 
Ed. Meyer, Ursprung u. Anfdnge des Christentums, vol. II (1921), p. 372. 
For the dating of the Gospel of Mary, cf. Schmidt in Sitzb. Berl. Akad. 1896, 
pp. 846-7, a note by Harnack. 

10 Hippolytus, VIII, 12-15. 

11 Tbid., V. 6-7, 2. 

12 Reitzenstein first proposed that Hippolytus in his treatment of the 
Naasenes (V. 6, 1-9, 9) excerpted and commented upon a pagan Naasene 
document in Christian redaction. (Poimandres, pp. 81-102). His analysis 
was accepted by Bousset (HP, pp. 184-5), P. Wendland (Die hellenistisch- 
romische Kultur, 2nd ed. (1912), pp. 172-3) and Leisegang (Die Gnosis (1924), 

39 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


Our witnesses in this sphere present the following chronological 
sequence: Monoimus, Hippolytus’ discussion of the Naasene 
system, the Christian Naasene theology as shown in the document 
of Hippolytus, the pre-Valentinian Ophites of Irenaeus and the 
pagan Naasene theology as shown by the document of Hippolytus. 
They cover a period from the middle of the third to the very begin- 
ning of the second century A.D.}° 

The figure to which our interest attaches in these diverse 
theologies appears under a great variety of names. Some of them 
recall the Manichean nomenclature, Primal Man. Such are the 
designations Protanthropos used by the Christian Naasenes of 
Syria,!4 and Archanthropos, employed by the Barbelognostics of 
Egypt.1° If there were any doubt of the identity of the Mani- 
chean Primal Man and his west-gnostic counterpart, these designa- 
tions would serve to remove it. Other designations like “‘Adam”’ 
or “‘Adamas’’!® give a Judaizing touch. The one most frequently 
employed, however, is ‘‘the Man” (6 dv6pwmos).!’ Its form is 
modified by the addition of descriptive adjectives, such as “‘the 
preéxistent,’’!% “the perfect” !°9 “‘the great, beautiful and per- 
fect,’’?° the ‘‘upper,’’?! or finally by the omission of the article, 


p.115). For further discussion of the distinction between pagan and Christian 
strata in the document cf. Reitzenstein u. Schaeder, Studien zum antiken 
Synkretismus, (1926), pp. 104-21, 161-73. 

13'The date of Monoimus is difficult to establish. Hippolytus, writing 
before A.D. 250, first mentions him, and places him in his treatment between 
the Docetics (early 2. c. A.D.) and Tatian (late 2. c. A.D.). The Ophites of 
Irenaeus I. 30, are said to be pre-Valentinian (ibid., I. 30, 15). The pagan 
Naasene document of Hippolytus is dated by the Attis hymn underlying its 
structure. This hymn is placed by Willamowitz-Moellendorf in the time of 
Hadrian, Hermes, vol. XX XVII, p. 329. 

14 Cf. Hippolytus, V. 7, 30. 

15 Trenaeus, I. 30, 1, Latin translation, and Gospel of Mary, Sitzb. Berl. 
Akad., 1896, p. 843. 

16 [bid. V. 7, 2, 6, 35; V. 6, 5; Irenaeus I, 29,3; Griech. christl. Schriftst. 
vol. XIII, p. 15, 9, passim. 

17 For instance Hipp. V, 6, 4; Irenaeus, I, 11, 1. 

18 Clem. Alex. Stromata, IT, 8, 36. 

19 Hipp. VIII, 13. 3; Irenaeus I, 29, 3. 

20 Ibid. V, 7, 7. 

11 Ibid. V, 7, 30. 

40 


THE ANTHROPOS IN WESTERN GNOSTIC SYSTEMS 


Anthropos thus becoming the equivalent of proper name.?2 

Of these designations ‘‘the Anthropos” is thus probably a 
later abbreviation of the more original name ‘Primal Man.” 
Yet it was this name that was attached to the figure in the sources 
to which scholars first directed their attention, and it is this name 
by which the figure is commonly referred to. 


2. As we find him in Egyptian syncretism, the Anthropos is a 
shadowy but apparently not completely abstract figure. He 
belongs to the preéxistent powers that comprise the pleroma. In 
the Coptic-Gnostic works, as “Jeu” the “first man” he dwells in 
a Topos immediately outside and to the right of the Treasury of 
Light, the source from which sprang those elements of deity which 
the diverse gradations of material existence reveal.?? The 
disciples of Valentinus give him a place in the primal Ogdoad of 
divine emanations, moving him slightly up and down the scale, 
from first,2* to second?® and even third place.2°® Valentinus 
himself placed the Anthropos and the consort Ecclesia invariably 
attached to him in the Valentinian systems, in the fourth and 
final position in the Ogdoad, that is after the Ineffable, Pater and 
Logos.?7 In the Poimandres, he is again the fourth in the order 
of emanation, that is, he comes into being, after Nous, Logos and 
Nous Demiourgos, but actually he is the offspring of the Nous, 
and thus coequal with the Logos.?% On the other hand, the 
Barbelognostics of the Gospel of Mary, had no scruples in making 
the Protanthropos the fountainhead of all existence.29 The 
phenomenon evinced by this fluctuation in position, has its counter- 


22 Poimandres, 12; Scott, Hermetica, I, p. 120, 5; Irenaeus, I, 11, 1; 
15, 1-3; 14, 5. 

23 C. Schmidt, Gnostische Schriften in koptischer Sprache, Texte u. Unter- 
suchungen, vol. VIII (1892), p. 372, Griech. christl. Schriftst. vol. XIII, 
pp. 126-6; 184-5; 237. 

24 Trenaeus, I, 12, 4. 

25 Kpiphanius, 31. 5, 5. 

26 Irenaeus, I, 12, 3. 

#7 frenaeus, I, 11; Hippolytus, VI, 29, 7; cf. Epiphanius, 31, 2, 10. 

28 Hermetica, I, pp. 116-20. 

29 Sitzb. Berl. Akad. 1896, pp. 843-4. 

41 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


part in the Manichean texts, where, it will be recalled, the Primal 
Man usurps the role of Ormuzd and even Zrvan. 

All this affords us little insight into the nature of the Anthropos’ 
being, and his character. The Poimandres alone adds a bit of 
flesh to the dry bones. It relates that: 


“Mind, the Father of all, he who is Life and Light, gave 
birth to Man, a being like to himself. And he took delight in 
Man, as being his own offspring; for Man was very goodly to 
look on, bearing the likeness of his Father. With good reason 
then did God take delight in Main; for it was God’s own form 
that God took delight in.” *° 


Evidently the author of the Poimandres is drawing in some way 
upon the Old Testament account of the creation of man to enliven 
the picture. 

Of primordial activity on the part of this pallid Anthropos, 
only the Poimandres gives us evidence. We are told that ‘God 
delivered over to Man all things that had been made” and that 
Man, | 


“having considered the creation of the Demiurge, in the Father, 
willed to make things for his own part also, and was permitted 
by his father to do so. Taking his place in the sphere of the 
Demiurge, and having all power, he considered the creations of 
his brother. But they (the Administrators) took delight in 
him and each of them gave him a share of his own nature. 

And having learnt to know the being and having received a 
share of their nature, he willed to break through the bounding 
circle of their orbits and to subdue the power of the one who was 
set over the region of fire.” 31 


30 Translation and text of Scott. Hermetica, I, p. 120, 4-8. Poimandres, 
§ 12. 

31 Poimandres, §§12-3, text of Reitzenstein (Poimandres, p. 331 and Studien, 
p. 156) translation after Scott. At this point Scott seems rather free in his 
restoration of the text. The reallocation of §13b (W. Scott, p. 120), where 
the Anthropos threatens to subdue the Adminstrator of Fire, is unnecessary 
because the warlike activity is a constant element in the Anthropos tradition, 
cf. above p. 19f., and below, p. 97ff. The situation in which the Anthropos 
here finds himself was familiar also to the Barbelognostics of whom Irenaeus 
relates that in their opinion Adamas, the unconquerable heavenly man, leaves 
Harmozel (correct form of the place name supplied by the Gospel of Mary, 

42 


THE ANTHROPOS IN WESTERN GNOSTIC SYSTEMS 


The passage distinctly recalls the Manichean conception to the 
effect that the Primal Man is sent forth into a primordial conflict, 
endowed with the powerful elements of divine existence. Of the 
conflict itself nothing is said in the Poimandres. 

In some form or other almost all of the Egyptian sources con- 
nect the Anthropos with extra-pleromatic existence, and more 
specifically with a divine principle indwelling in mankind. The 
Coptic-Gnostic works establish only an indirect relation. Jeu, the 
first man, is the overseer over the light-essence that has been 
estranged from the Treasury of Light in the course of time.?? 
The writings of Zosimus have yielded to Reitzenstein a more 
direct connection. The Alchemist at one place speaks of the 
liberation of man from Heimarmene, and vouchsafes the opinion 
that the man of spirituality does not need to use magic to over- 
come Fate. Knowing himself as he does, this man will soon 
discern within himself a universal power, the Son of God, who 
becomes all things for all men, particularly for the sake of the 
pious souls and their release. The idea is that the one who is 
spiritually minded will discover that his spiritual self is a part of 
an individual transcendent being which furnishes him who listens 
to its message the necessary help against the power of Fate. This 
transcendent being Zosimus, on the authority of Bitys, Plato and 
Hermes, considers as the Primal Man, called Thot by the Egyp- 
tians, and Adam by the Chaldeans, Medes and Hebrews. *? 

The school of Valentinus shared such an opinion at least as 
far as Adam the protoplast was concerned. Clement of Alexandria 
quotes from an epistle of Valentinus words to the effect that “Adam 


SBA, 1896, pp. 839-47) equipped with agnitionem perfectam and a virtutem 
invictam. (Iren. 1, 29,3.) This again recalls very distinctly the ideas recorded 
in the new Hermetic text discovered by Reitzenstein where Horus (who re- 
places the Anthropos) goes forth from heaven equipped with many powers, 
and particularly with one which like the Barbelognostic Adamas he receives 
from virgo. (Cf. Irenaeus, I, 29, 3 virginalis spiritus); see Reitzenstein u. 
Schaeder, Studien, pp. 113-4. 

32 TU, vol. VIII, p. 372; Griech. christl. Schriftst., vol. XIIL, pp. 125-6; 
184-5; 237. 

33 Reitzenstein, Poimandres, pp. 102-8. 

43 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


was formed in the name of Man’’‘ and inspired fear of the pre- 
existent Man into the angels, his creators, by reason of that 
Man’s having his being in him, and having communicated to 
him a germ of the supernal essence, so that he ‘‘uttered greater 
things than proceeded from his formation.”?5 The Valentinian 
Marcus apparently shared this conception. 36 

Of the nature of the divine element in man, its origin and how 
it came into the human body, the Poimandres furnishes another 
account. The Anthropos, we are told, though he planned to 
subdue the powers of fire, 


“looked down through the structure of the heavenly harmony, 
having broken through the (lowest) sphere, and showed to 
downward-tending Nature the beautiful form of God. And 
nature, beholding his beauty insatiate, as one who had in himself 
all the power of the Administrators, as well as the image of God, 
smiled with love as she saw the reflection of that most beautiful 
form in the water and its shadow on the earth. And he, seeing 
this form, a form like his own, in a het in the water, loved it and 
willed to dwell there . 


54 eis 7d dvoua really denotes “in his image,”’ the name being, for Valentinus, 
attached to the image by the painter (the demiurge) to complete the similarity 
between original and copy. Clem. Alex., Stromata, IV, 13. Cf. Hilgenfeld, 
p. 299. 

35 Clem. Alex., Stromata, II, 8, 36; Hilgenfeld, p. 293. Leisegang, in 
defending his conception that the origin of the Anthropos is to be sought in 
the Hellenistic macrocosm speculation, identifies the 6 {dv afwy (Clem. Alex. 
Stromata. IV, 13; Hilgenfeld, p. 299) with the Anthropos. This afwy need 
not be the Anthropos at all. {t might be considered the Pleroma as a whole, or 
the primal Ogdoad; cf. the 6 &@6apros atwy of Irenaeus I, 30, 2, and the dvw afwy 
of Epiphanius, 37, 1. The only evidence for cosmogonal associations on 
the part of the Anthropos, to be found in Egypt, appears in the Coptic Gnostic 
works. (TU, vol. VIII, pp. 227; 278-9; 384.) Here, however, the Anthropos, 
as the Man Adamas has already been fused with the revolting demiurge 
Sabaoth, and thus appears as Sabaoth-Adamas. The cosmogonal associations 
may thus have been introduced in connection with the figure of Saboath. 
Irenaeus, I, 11, 1 distinctly says that it was one of the twelve aeons produced 
by the Anthropos, who created all the “rest of the universe” according to 
Valentinus. Cf. also Irenaeus, I, 17, 1. 

46 Trenaeus I, 14,6; 15,3. The spiritual man of Marcus like the Anthropos 
of the Poimandres is bisexual, Iren., I, 18, 2. 

44 


THE ANTHROPOS IN WESTERN GNOSTIC SYSTEMS 


“Nature, receiving him with whom she was enamoured, 
wrapped him in her clasp, and they were mingled in one; for 
they were lovers. 

“For this reason man, unlike all other living creatures upon 
earth, is twofold, being mortal by reason of the body and 
immortal by reason of the man of eternal substance... . 

“Nature, mingled in marriage with Man, brought forth a 
marvel most marvellous. Inasmuch as Man had got from the 
structure of the heavens the character of the seven Administra- 
tors, who were made... of fire and air, Nature tarried not, but 
forthwith gave birth to seven Men, according to the characters 
of the seven Administrators; and these seven men were bi- 
sexual.... 

“These seven men then . . . were generated in this wise. 
Nature brought forth their bodies; the earth was the female 
element and water the male element; and from fire she received 
the maturity (the seed) and from aether the spirit, and according 
to the form of Man she produced the bodies. But the Man in 
them changed from Life and Light into soul and mind, soul from 
Life and mind from Light.’’3” 


The account of the Poimandres testifies, together with the 
evidence quoted from Valentinus, that a divine element indwelling 
in humanity is derived from and related to the transcendent 
Anthropos. Yet it has a number of peculiarities. In the first 
place it makes the Anthropos himself the agent in bringing about 
‘the union of divine element and Physis, a thing which his meta- 
physic did not permit Valentinus to do. Secondly, it describes 
the manner in which the union was achieved in a graphic way, 
placing the Anthropos into an amorous situation which we have 
not previously encountered. °8 

Of our Egyptian sources only the Gospel of Mary echoes this 


37 Poimandres, §§ 14-17; text according to Reitzenstein, translation 
according to Scott. 

38 A distinct echo of the descent of the Anthropos armed with many powers 
and his creation of the first man is preserved in a Hermetic text which Reitzen- 
stein has recently culled from an Arabic MS. of the eighth century. The 
Anthropos here appears as Harus (Horus). The amorous motif is missing, 
Horus fashioning the first man, Adamanus after the fashion of Jahve and 
supplying him with powers taken from the stars; cf. Reitzenstein u. Schaeder, 
Studien, pp. 112-8. 

45 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


situation, and that in a different connection. It relates that at 
the very beginning of things the Father, the Protanthropos, 
conjured up for himself his image and beheld it in the waters of 
pure light surrounding him, thereby giving birth to Ennoia, who 
since she is his image can/also be called Protanthropos.?® 

The Egyptian Anthropos is connected not only with the 
divine element in man, but with the soteriological powers as well. 

Jeu in the Coptic-Gnostic works gathers from a group of 
fettered aeons the light-elements which their revolt has temporarily 
estranged from the Treasury of Light. Other elements, such as 
reside in men and are released from the clutches of matter at the 
death of the body come before him as well. If they are pure, 
Jeu returns them to the Treasury, if not, he hands them to the 
Maiden of Light to be sent back for further incarnation.4® Jeu 
bears here a remarkable resemblance to the Primal Man and the 
Third Messenger of the Manichees, who, as we recall are located 
in the sun and there perform the tasks ascribed here to Jeu. How 
the resemblance is to be explained has not yet been determined — 
by scholars. *! 

In the Manichean system, the Primal Man functions as savior 
not only in transmitting the heavenly souls homeward; he appears 
in human guise among men on earth. The same is true of the 
Anthropos in the systems of the Valentinian school. Irenaeus 
heard it said that, according to Valentinus, Jesus was emanated 
from the Anthropos and his partner Ecclesia.42 He later reports 
that certain Valentinians believed the savior as Son of Man to be 
a descendent of the Anthropos, that is one of the aeons produced 
by the Anthropos*? while still others made him the offspring of 
the Pleroma as a whole, that is of the ultimate Propator (the 


59 SBA, 1896, p. 843. For parallels in Syria cf. below, pp. 70-2. 

40'TU, VIII, p. 372. 

41 Cyril of Jerusalem makes Mani dependent upon Egyptian speculation 
such as came to him at the hands of Scythianus and Terebinthus (Cat. 6, 
20 ff.) It is more probable that Mani and the Coptic works draw upon a 
common (Syrian?) source. 

42 Tren., I, 11, 1 

43 Thid., I, 12, 4. 

46 


THE ANTHROPOS IN WESTERN GNOSTIC SYSTEMS 


Anthropos) in whom the whole pleroma is contained.44 A 
longer and more complex account he gives of what is said to be 
Marcus’ view in the matter. Here, we are told, the Jesus who 
appeared on the earth was generated by four powers who were 
the representatives of the first Tetrad of emanations. In this 
group of four the Anthropos was represented by the “power of 
the Highest” (Le. 1, 33.) Thus Jesus can call himself the Son 
of Man.*° . 

Manicheans and Valentinians agree in the belief that the 
Anthropos is active in the work of salvation. They disagree in 
so far as the Valentinians’ savior is an emanation and son of the 
Anthropos, rather than the latter’s personal manifestation. *® 
Whether this phenomenon itself represents an earlier or a later 
stage in the development of the soteriological role of the 
Anthropos remains to be seen. 

There is no evidence to show that in Egypt the Anthropos 
played an eschatological role, except it be found in the statement 
that Jeu, after he has gathered the estranged light-essence, is 
himself elevated to a position within the Treasury of Light.*? 

3. Turning from the pallid Anthropos of our Egyptian Gnostics 
to his Syrian counterpart, we find the latter more liberally attested 
to but often shrouded in a persiflage of philosophic terminology 
that veils his inner being. What is more, the use of philosophic 
terminology brings with it a realinement of those central concepts 
in which the Anthropos Theology expresses itself. In both 
Mesopotamia and Egypt, for instance, the divine element indwell- 
ing in man was considered a portion or manifestation of the one 
person known as Anthropos or Primal Man. In the systems of 
the later Syrian Gnostics it sometimes appears as the immanent 
counterpart of the transcendent personality. The two manifesta- 


44 Tbid. 

45 Ibid., I, 15, 3. 

46 Of course Augustine speaks of the Manichean Christ as the son of the 
Primal Man (cf. above, p. 32), but, as we have seen, the use of “son” does 
not imply emanation from the Anthropos. Cf. Baur, pp. 208-9 and above, 
p. 27, n. 51. 

47 TU, VIII, p. 372. 

47 


ANTHROPOS AND SON: OF MAN 


tions are determined in their nature by the metaphysical postulates 
of the Greek philosophers, which attribute to existence absolute 
and relative forms. Thus we have frequently in Syria two 
Anthropoi, designated by the names Anthropos and Son of Man 
respectively. #8 | 

Of the first of these, Monoimus the Arabian speaks as the All*9 
whose symbol is the iota, the numeral letter in which all the nume- 
rals are potentially but not expressly contained.°® To the 
Christian Naasene redactor of the pagan Naasene Document, he, 
the Anthropos Adamas,*! a blessed being of blessed nature*? is 
the “‘pure mind,” the unshapen brain,®? the unshapen Logos 
(Mind).>* He stands beyond the pale of both the physical and 
the intelligible world, yet contains within himself in potential 
form the elements of these worlds. Thus he may be called an 
hermaphrodite.°° The Ophites of Irenaeus I. 30, echo the same 
conception when they speak of the First Man as Bythos, the 
Father of All. 

The second Anthropos, the Son of Man, Monoimus considers 
the objectivation of the transcendent monad. If the Anthropos 
proper is the iota, the latter is the one iota.°® He is a being 
generated by the Anthropos independently of time but subject to 
passion. All this cosmos is actually produced from some part of 
him and has its unity in him, but no one of its elements manifests 
him completely. 

While Hippolytus and Irenaeus in their descriptions of the 
Naasenes and Ophites mention but do not characterize the Son of 
Man, the Christian Naasene redactor is quite discursive on the 
subject. The second Man, whom he prefers to call the ‘ Perfect 


48 Hippolytus, V, 6, 4-5. 
49 Tbid., VIII, 12, 2. 

50 Tbid., VIII, 12, 6. 

51 [bid., V, 7, 2 and 30. 
52 Tbid., V, 8, 2. 

53 Tbid., V, 8, 13. 

54 Ibid., V, 7, 33. 

55 Tbid., V, 6, 6; 7, 14. 
6 Tbid., VIII, 13, 4. 


THE ANTHROPOS IN WESTERN GNOSTIC SYSTEMS 


Man”? is the shapen or moulded Mind from which the entire 
family of things is fashioned,®® in short the ‘“‘moulded Son of 
Man.”°? Mind, however, not only contains within itself the 
cosmos, it is in turn contained within the world as an active agent 
and an indwelling principle. Thus the Son of Man may be likened 
to Oceanus, the great stream flowing downward from above and 
upward again from below.®® This stream is Reason, the ineffable 
and mystical Logos, the seed of things, to be found in men after 
their seventh year.©! While his voice is heard within men, the 
actual shape in which this Son of Man descends from above is 
quite unknown.®? He passes into the body as the Perfect Man 
Within, is overwhelmed by passion and must needs be reborn to 
return upward and become a God once more. ©? 

For this indwelling Son of Man, the Ophites of Irenaeus have 
an indwelling Sophia. Whether she has replaced the Son of 
Man or is indigenous in her role here is difficult to determine. 
This much is clear, that Adam, when endowed by her with the 
divine element from above, begins to revere the Anthropos, °* and 
that at her hands, humanity is the recipient of a message the burden 
of which is the same Anthropos. 6° 

The earliest of our Syrian sources, the pagan Naasene Docu- 
ment quoted by Hippolytus, presents a different picture. Its 
author is not a philosopher but a religious mystic and syncretist. 
He thinks in terms of God, the intermediary sphere and the world, 
and searches among the traditions of mankind to find evidence 
and confirmation of his belief that in man there dwell elements of 
divinity. Among the many traditions that have come to his 
knowledge there is one that connects itself with the Anthropos. 
The Anthropos as our pagan author knew him is not an abstrac- 

57 Ibid., V, 8, 5, 20, 21, 38, 39; 9, 18. 

88 Ibid., V, 7, 35; ef. V, 8, 5. 

59 Tbid., V, 7, 33. 

60 Ibid., V, 8, 19-20; cf. V, 9, 15-19. 

61 Ibid., V, 7, 20-22. 

°? Ibid., V, 8, 14. 

63 Tbid., V, 7, 39-40; 8, 18-21. 

64 Trenaeus, I, 30, 6. 

* Tbid., I, 30, 11. 

49 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN . 


tion, he is a celebrity, ‘‘the Great, Most Glorious and Perfect 
Man” as he calls him.6® What interested him in this celebrity 
is that fact the from him is said to be derived the ‘‘inner man” 
who has ‘‘fallen into man from Adam the Primal Man above,’ ®? 
in other words ‘‘the spiritual man who is born again, being in 
every respect of the same substance with that (heavenly) man.’ ®8 

The author of the pagan Naasene Document found in the 
Anthropos tradition more than mere confirmation of his belief 
that humanity is somehow related to the Gods. He discovered 
there as well an interesting account of how this relationship had 
been established. It is contained in a story of the creation of the 
protoplast, a story which the author takes pains to quote in detail 
and to which he ascribes Chaldean provenience. The account, 
edited to be intelligible apart from the context and to discount 
those elements accruing to it at the hand of the writer and his 
over-writer, reads as follows: 


The Chaldeans [say that the first man to come into being 
was] Adam. And he (they say) is the man whom the earth 
brought forth as the only one.® And (that) he lay inanimate, 
unmoved, motionless as an effigy, being an image of the man 
above [namely] (the celebrated Adamas), [having been] produced 
by the agency of many powers (concerning whom there is indivi- 
dually much discussion). In order, therefore, that finally the 
great man above ” may be overpowered (by whom, as they say, 
the whole family named on earth and in the heavens has been 
formed), to him [the earthly man] was given also a soul,?! that 
through the soul, the enslaved creation 7? of the great and most 


§ Hipp. V, 7, 8. 

67 Ibid., V, 7, 36. 

8 Ibid., V, 8, 10. . The author sometimes, identifies and sometimes dis- 
tinguishes between the soul and the inner man. 

69 Reitzenstein reads ‘“‘body alone,” Studien, p. 161. Quite probable. 

70 Reitzenstein construes dvwhev with é566n and reads “from above there 
was given” (ibid., p. 162). Possible but not necessary, since dvw0ev can be 
used interchangeably with éyw; so Hipp., IV, 14, 14, and particularly V, 7, 36. 

71 Reitzenstein considers the ‘‘upper man” to be given, in the story, as a 
soul to the earthly man (Poimandres, p. 84, n. 7). 

22 rhdopa. 


50 


THE ANTHROPOS IN WESTERN GNOSTIC SYSTEMS 


glorious and perfect man (for even so they call him), might 
suffer and be restrained.” 


The ‘‘Chaldean Tale,” as we shall call it, is of importance for 
the analysis of the Anthropos tradition in a number of ways. It 
is, in all probability, the oldest of the datable elements of this 
tradition. It takes us out of the littoral Orient and back to 
Mesopotamia. It shows us that in Mesopotamia there existed 
long before Manicheism and the systems of the Syrian Gnostics a 
mythological celebrity, known as the Great or Upper Man, and 
said to have been embroiled in a primordial conflict of disastrous 
results. To the author of the pagan Naasene Document the tale 
was significant because it gave further proof of the presence of a 
divine element in man, the spirit, the “inner man” of whom we 
have heard him speak, and to whom he no doubt found reference 
in the ‘‘image”’ which the earthly man possesses. ’ 4 

The pagan Naasene Document, we therefore conclude, knows 
but one Anthropos, a heavenly celebrity whose image is found in 
man and represents there a spiritual power, the ‘‘inner man.”’ 
This Anthropos is not a metaphysical postulate, he is a mytho- 
logical character. 

The Manicheans connected the Primal Man not only with a 
divine element indwelling in man, but also with the saviors who 
come to redeem that element. Is there evidence that this con- 
ception was shared by the Syrian Gnostics? 

In the case of Monoimus it is difficult to arrive at any con- 
clusion in the matter. We have only one statement upon which 
to base an opinion. Hippolytus has the Arabian say that ‘‘every 
creature ignorant of the Son (of Man) considers him the offspring 


73 Hipp., V, 7, 6-8. As the last sentence indicates the names applied to 
the Anthropos in the Chaldean Tale proper were descriptive. Adamas is the 
designation added by the author of the pagan Naasene Document in relating 
the story. It is therefore placed in parentheses. Originally the Chaldean 
Tale may well have been told in an Aramaic dialect. 

74 The “image of God” is a divine entity according to Philo (de Somniis, 
ed. Cohn-Wendland, I, 239; de Opificio Mundi, 25), Paul (Col. 1, 15) and the 
Simonians (Hipp., VI, 3-6). For Philo it is the Logos, for Paul the Christ, 
and for the Simonians the Spirit of God. 

51 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


of a woman.”’> That-may signify either that Christ, ‘incarnate 
of the virgin” is not the true Son of Man, or that Christ is the Son 
of Man but that his nature must be docetically interpreted. The 
statement is therefore valueless as evidence. 

According to Hippolytus the Christian Naasenes shared the 
Manichean opinion. In his account of their theology he tells us 
that “they derive, partly from the gentiles the generation of the 
man Adam (the upper man) .. . and ficticiously apply it to 
Christ.””“® They are said to cherish a direct literary tradition 
that connects them with Christ through James and Mariamme. 7? 
“They believe that the three elements, rational, psychic and 
earthly, which compose the Anthropos Adamas, have descended 
simultaneously into Christ and speak through him.’ 78 

The Christian Naasene redactor of the pagan Naasene Docu- 
ment partly substantiates the Heresiarch’s statements. The 
views of the former are most lucidly presented in his interpreta- 
tion of the words ‘‘I am the true gate.’’ These words, he tells us, 
signify that Jesus is the sole way toward the rebirth of the spiritual 
man,’ and the agency that turned the flow of the Jordan (i.e., the 
stream of spiritual life flowing from the Perfect Man), the trans- 
cendent Adamas. Jesus is himself the manifestation of the 
‘‘moulded mind,” the ‘‘perfect man who is imaged from the 
unportrayable one above.’’8® We have in this instance, then 
a closer parallel to the Manichean conception of the redeemer 
redeeming himself than was furnished in the Egyptian systems, 
for the redeemer is here the full revelation of the Logos or Reason 
which dwells in mankind. 

Exactly what the views of the Christian Ophites of Irenaeus 
may have been on this subject is again difficult to determine. 
Whether this is due to a crossing of two streams of influence in the 
growth of their theology, or whether our accounts are at fault is 


76 Hipp., VIII, 11, 3. 
76 Ibid., V, 7, 2. 
77 Ibid., V, 7, 1. 
78 Ibid., V, 6, 5-7. 
79 Ibid., V, 8, 21. 
80 Ibid. 
52 


THE ANTHROPOS IN WESTERN GNOSTIC SYSTEMS 


not apparent. ‘On the one hand we are told that Christ (the 
divine element that dwells in Jesus) is the son of both the First 
Man, the Second Man (Son of Man) and the Mother of Life.®! 
On the other hand it is said that he uses the name Son of Man to 
designate himself as the son of the First Man,®? a statement that 
probably presupposes his identity with the Second Man from whom 
he is otherwise differentiated. In view of the fact that the life 
principle indwelling in man comes to him ultimately also from the 
First Man, the latter statement would place the Ophite Christology 
on a level with the Christian Naasene and the Manichean, while 
the former would bring it into line with the Egyptian Anthropos 
theology. There is little choice between the two possibilities. 

The author of the pagan document which the Christian 
Naasenes interpolated does not, if we construe the sense of his 
words correctly, know of a soteriological manifestation of the 
Anthropos. ‘True, he attributes objective reality to none of the 
saviors in whose names salvation was being proclaimed through- 
out the Hellenistic world. Most of them are to him symbols of 
the soul. Hermes, who as Psychopomp aspires to a higher role, 
is not to be distinguished from “‘reason”’ as a natural part of man’s 
endowment.*? Even a soteriological form of the Anthropos he 
would have been prone to transfer from the sphere of the objective 
to that of the subjective. But no such transfer is made. Anthropos 
and man are related because of the creative activity of the former. 
Perceiving the avidity with which our pagan author syncretized 

verything that came under his observation we can draw from 
his use of the Anthropos tradition but one conclusion. The 
Anthropos as he knew him did not manifest himself in the form of 
a savior. 

The eschatological role of the Anthropos has at best only. one 
echo in Syrian Gnosticism and that is seriously open to question. 
It is preserved in a statement concerning the Christ of the Ophites 
of Irenaeus, who, as we recall, is either a son or a manifestation 
of the lower or second heavenly man. Of him we are told that he 

81 Tren., I, 30, 1. 


= Tbid., 1, 30, 13. 
83 Hipp., V, 7, 35-7. 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


is seated by the side of the demiurge receiving to himself the souls 
of those who have in life known him, and that having gathered the 
light-essence that is embraced in the world in the form of souls, 
carries it off to form an incorruptible aeon.8* The idea of the 
session with the demiurge, recalls the Jewish and Christian view 
of the execution of judgment by the Son of Man. Hence the 
uncertainty of the testimony. The carrying off of the light- 
essence and the formation of an incorruptible aeon, on the other 
hand recall the reunion of the Primal Man and his lost self, and 
their return to the home in which they existed at the beginning. 

The Anthropos as we have met him in Egypt and Syria is in 
many respects similar to the Manichean Primal Man, even though 
in some of his manifestations he is a century older than his Meso- 
potamian counterpart. We have here the same transcendent and 
pre-existent figure, similarly connected with the creation of man 
and with a divine element indwelling in man. The basic identity 
of the two cannot be questioned; yet each has his individuality. 
The latter lacks the plasticity and the dramatic vicissitudes of the 
former. Abstractions and shadowy existence characterize his 
being. The relations between him and his psychic and soterio- 
logical manifestations are often altered, so that reason is his 
immanent counterpart and the savior his son or emanation. 
Indeed the soteriological and eschatological elements of his role 
have a tendency to disappear entirely. Even so, the earliest 
elements of the Western tradition show a tendency to revert to 
the Manichean type, for they record some traces of the primordial 
conflict and lead us back to Chaldea. How these similarities and 
' differences are to be reconciled is a matter to be considered after 
we have followed the fourth strand in the Anthropos tradition, 
the Mandean. 


84 Tren., I, 30, 14. 


54 


CHAPTER IV 
THE MANDEAN ANTHROPOS 


In the reconstruction of later oriental syncretism as a whole, 
and the analysis of the Anthropos speculation in particular, the 
Mandeans have latterly come to play an important part. 

1. Comprising a baptist communion still surviving in the 
swampy lowlands of Mesopotamia, the Mandeans are known to us 
from their voluminous sacred books brought to Europe in the latter 
half of the last century by prominent orientalists, and since made 
readily accessible in the editions and translations of Lidzbarski.! 
Historical and philological inquiry soon revealed that the Mandeans 
represent one of the sects classed in Mohammedan times as Sabean 
and that their language is an Aramaic dialect akin to Syriac and 
to the idiom of the Talmud Babli. But the theology and religious 
lore of the Mandeans remained an enigma until approached by 
students of Hellenistic antiquities like Bousset.2 This, it has now 
developed, bears the unmistakable stamp of the great syncretistic 
era of ancient times, a fact that is corroborated by the name 
Mandean, i.e., Gnostic, as well as by the close relation between 
many of the Mandean conceptions and those of the Manichean 
Turfan texts. Manichean and Mandean religions are con- 
temporary elements of Mesopotamian Gnosis. 

Now Mandean tradition records that the sect migrated to its 
Mesopotamian center from some other place.* Lidzbarski, in 
working on the texts, collected a goodly amount of evidence to 
show that the original home of the sect was the Hauran district 


‘Cf. my “ Mandaic Bibliography’’ JAOS, vol 46, No. 1 (1926), pp. 49-55. 

? Bousset, HP, pp. 176-7. 

’ Das Johannesbuch der Mandéer, ed. Lidzbarski, vol. 2 (1915), pp. 123-38 
(abbrev. JB.), Manddische eth ed. Lidzbarski (1920), pp. 209-212 
(abbrev. ML.). 

55 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


between Palestine and Arabia. In the Palestinian stage of their 
development they represented a syncretizing type of Judaism, of 
the kind known from the Christian heresiologists and from Philo. * 

These observations at once raise the question as to how much 
the Mandeans antedate the days of Mani, a question more readily 
put than answered. Reitzenstein endeavored to prove that the 
apocalypse found at the beginning of the Ginza is more ancient 
than the Logia source of the Synoptic Gospels, but without 
success.° Yet extensive similarities in form and thought between 
the Mandaic Liturgies and the Odes of Solomon, show that they 
flourished in an atmosphere that existed as early as the first 
Christian century. That being the case, the strong tradition by 
which they declare themselves to be the disciples of John the 
Baptist may contain at least this grain of truth, that the formation 
of their sect was due in part to the influence of men perpetuating 
in one form or another the movement begun by the Baptist.” 

The Mandean evidence for the Anthropos may for this reason 
be highly important and lead us into the proximity of Judaism. 
But two facts must be constantly kept in mind. Since our texts 
present the Mandean theology in a reconciled form of at least the 
third or fourth century A.D., specific reasons must be given to 
prove greater antiquity for individual elements thereof. More- 
over, since the Anthropos’ role has, as we shall see, been divided 
among a number of figures, not everything said about them relates 
to the Anthropos. 


2. One of the Mandean figures recently associated by scholars 
with the Anthropos, is Manda d’Haye, the ‘‘ Knowledge of Life.’’® 


4 Cf. the introductions to JB, and ML, and to ‘‘Ginza, das grosse Buch der 
Mandder,”’ ed. Lidzbarski, in “Quellen der Religionsgeschichte,”’ vol. 13 
(1926). (The Ginza is quoted as “right” and “left” and abbreviated RG, 
and LG.) 

6 This is the thesis of Reitzenstein, MB. 

6 Cf. IE, pp. 84-92 and the summary of my paper, “The Odes of Solomon 
and the Protognostic Hymns of the Manichean and Mandean Liturgies,” Pro- 
ceedings of the American Oriental Society (1926), No. 33. 

7 Paul met such men in Greece. Cf. Acts 19, 1-3. Simon Magus was 
considered by some to be a disciple of the Baptist, Clem. Hom. II, 23. 

§ Brandt, Manddische Religion (1889), p. 189 (abbrev. MR,) and IE, p. 54. 

56 


THE MANDEAN ANTHROPOS 


A son of the Great First Life, and the ultimate progenitor of 
many heavenly beings, Manda d’Haye appears in a number of 
capacities, first as the champion of Light in the primordial conflict 
of Light and Darkness, then as the guardian of the soul in its 
descent to the body. Having implanted the heavenly Mana in 
its corporeal frame, he ordains guardians and messengers who 
shall comfort and instruct it. Indeed throughout all the ages and 
generations he himself appears in the world, a messenger baptized 
by John, teaching the way of life, leading the souls upward at death, 
establishing them in the Treasure-House of Life and functioning 
at the end of the world as the judge of the holy and the wicked. 

In the general range of his activities Manda d’Haye potently 
recalls the Manichean Primal Man, yet it is a question whether 
and to what extent he may, even as the latter, be a manifestation 
of the Anthropos. A careful consideration of a few of his functions 
may serve to justify our hesitancy in the matter. Let us take, 
for example his role in the primordial conflict. It develops along 
lines familiar to us from the Manichean texts, but entails a subtle 
difference. The Primal Man, as we shall see, is essentially a 
defeated champion. Only rarely is the note of tragedy dispelled 
from the story, when we hear that the loss of his “self” was 
dictated to the First Man by a strategy looking toward an eventual 
victory.? Manda d’Haye, on the other hand, is predominantly 
victorious.!° No one ever really questions the fact. The best 
that the author of the third book of the right Ginza can do is to 
consider the dire possibilities attendant upon the mission of the 
champion. Thus Manda d’Haye, when appointed to subdue the 
rebellious powers of darkness, plies the First Life with a series of 
questions: 


When I search for you where shall I look? 
When I am in trouble, upon whom shall I rely? 


But even here, we are told: 


The Mana answered in majesty and said to Manda d’Haye: 
Thou shalt not be separated from us." 


9 Cf. above, pp. 18-21, and below, pp. 99-101. 
10 So for instance in the great third book RG. 
11 RG, p. 68, 14-18. 

57 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


A passage in the Book of John is practically the only echo of the 
Manichean conception. Here the First Son of the Great Life, 
under conditions similar to those obtaining in the portion of Book 
3 of the Ginza, already alluded to, asks: 


If I descend, who wil bring me up niger 

If I fall who will hold me? 

Who will enfold for me my soul, lest we fall into the burning 
water? 

Who will produce a solidification (on the surface of the water) 
lest we fall into the murky deep? 

Who will set my crown upon my head and arrange the forelocks 
of brilliance? 

When the Evil Ones hold me a prisoner in their castle, who will 
be my liberator? 2 


The last verse of the passage is especially suggestive. The fate 
which Manda d’Haye anticipates is that of the Manichean Primal 
Man. But even in this instance he returns unscathed. 

. In the Manichean texts, as we have seen, the champion loses 
a portion of his self, which remains in the world as the soul. The 
struggle of Manda d’Haye, on the other hand, is almost entirely 
disassociated from the animation of material existence. The 
only evidence to the contrary is again a section of the Book of 
John, where we read: 


. . the messenger was sent to overthrow the power of the 
rebels. Lo, they brought living water and poured it into the 
murky water; they brought shining light and threw it into 
dismal darkness; they brought the pleasing wind and cast it 
into the raging wind; they brought the living fire and cast it 
into the devouring fire; they brought the soul, the pure Mana 
and cast her into the worthless body.!8 


The mingling of two groups of five elements each, and the con- 

nection of this act with the coming of the champion, again recall 

the Anthropos theology of the Manichees, but are by no means 

integral part of the Mandean system that lies before us in the 

bulk of the texts. True, Manda d’Haye, in an entirely different 
12 JB, p. 223. 


13 Tbid., p. 56. 
58 


THE MANDEAN ANTHROPOS 


connection shares with others the honor of placing the soul in 
the body of Adam, but the soul is never represented as a portion 
of his being or person under those circumstances. !4 

In what the sources tell of him as savior, there is nothing that 
would be intelligible only in the light of the Anthropos speculation. 
In this capacity he may with equal justice be considered a type 
of the Gnostic Soter, or of the person of ‘‘Wisdom”’ as she was 
known in the more westerly Gnostic circles.}° What is over and 
above the universal Gnostic substratum in his role as savior, 
namely his baptism by John and his descensus ad inferos, merely 
indicate that it is a Christian-Gnostic type of Soter whom he 
approximates. 

From what has already been said it will be evident that while 
Manda d’Haye and the Anthropos are in many respects similar, 
the two figures are fundamentally unrelated. With this con- 
clusion the majority of those who have busied themselves with 
the Mandean texts are in agreement. Most scholars consider 
Manda d’Haye a form of the ancient Babylonian Marduk. 1! 
Yet, it must also be evident that at one time people did regard 
Manda d’Haye and the Anthropos as identical. That is shown 
by the injection of incongruous elements into the Mandean tradi- 
tion, such as those which anticipate for Manda d’Haye the fate of 
the Anthropos, or connect the mingling of the five elements with 
his activity. It is apparent also from the name “gabra gadmaya,”’ 
Primal Man, sometimes applied to Manda d’ Haye in the Mandean 
sources.!’ This fact of the interrelation of the two figures is of 
no significance so far as the origin of the Mandean figure is con- 
cerned. For the origin of the Anthropos it may yet be of 
importance. : 


4 


3. In searching for genuine and more readily intelligible 
evidence of the Anthropos in the Mandean sources it is best to 


144Tn the LG the soul and the messenger are related, as Reitzenstein con- 
tends, IE, pp. 538-5. But cf. below, pp. 68-70. 
1 HP, pp. 242-51. 
16 HP, loc. cit., and Kessler, art. “‘Mandder,” Prot. Realenzyk. (3rd ed.), 
vol. XII, p. 182. 
17 MR, p. 189; MB., p. 46; ML, p. 3. 
59 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


begin with an analysis of the conceptions associated with the 
name Adam. The name is employed in a number of different 
ways. It designates the protoplast as an individual, !® the earthly 
element of his physical structure,!9 the corresponding divine 
element,?° and a heavenly being independent, in part, of the 
whole of material existence.?! In order to distinguish them one 
from another, descriptive adjectives are liberally employed, thus 
giving rise to the names ‘“‘corporeal Adam,” “hidden Adam” or 
‘““Adakas,” and ‘Adam the Great.’”’? Our interest naturally 
attaches to the figures denoted by the last two names. 

Adam the Great, is little more than a shadow flitting across 
the many pages of Mandean texts. He is mentioned by name as 
the progenitor of the Hibil-Sitil-Anosh group of messengers in the 
introductory words of Books 11 and 12 of the right Ginza.?? His 
name is said to be the property of the Great Life, the supreme 
being, and was at one time willfully adopted by Bhaq-Uthra, that 
is Abatur.?% He is thought of as identical with Shaq-Uthra 
because the latter is called the ‘Great and First.’’ 24 

The passages in which the Great Adam is thus explicitly 
mentioned are all later than the main body of the Mandean writ- 
ings. ‘The captions of Books 11 and 12 of the right Ginza do not 
correspond to the material of the books to which they are prefaced. 
The mention of Bhaq-Uthra’s adopted name interrupts the con- 
tinuity of thought in the context where it appears, while Shaq- 
Uthra is identified with Adam Rabba only in very late texts that 
are virtually extra-canonical. These facts have led Brandt to 
believe that the figure of the Great Adam is the product of modern 
Mandaic theology which regards the divine world as an ideal 
copy of the earthly world.2° While modern speculation may have 


18 RG, p. 15, 9. 
19 LG, p. 456, 29-30. 
20 RG, p. 243, 4. 
21 ML, p. 110, 3-4. 
22 RG, pp. 251 and 269. 
23 RG, p. 293, 30-32. 
24 JB, p. 230, n. 5. 
25 MR, pp. 37-8. 
60 


THE MANDEAN ANTHROPOS 


been the occasion for the reémergence of the heavenly Adam, and 
for the creation of the name Adam Rabba, the figure itself is 
certainly older, and that for a number of reasons. 

In the first place, that which is told of the Great Adam in the 
late strata of our texts corresponds, in part at least, to earlier 
tradition. Thus the partial identity of Bhaq-Uthra and the 
heavenly Man appears also from the Liturgies and Book 5 of the 
right Ginza, where as Abatur he plays the role of the Anthropos in 
the Poimandres. ?® 

Secondly, there appears in the main body of the texts an 
Adam, who, while he bears no distinguishing attributive, is 
probably the same Adam Rabba. In the Liturgies he casts the 
soul into the material body of the protoplast.2” In Book 3 of 
the right Ginza he is styled ‘King of the Uthras” and together 
with his wife Hawwa (Eve), who is formed in the likeness of a 
cloud of light,” he is revered by all men.?® Heaven is twice 
referred to as his garden. ?® 

All this is evidence to show that the Adam Rabba of the late 
tradition was known at the time the main body of the texts was 
composed. Perhaps we can go one step further and say that in 
the age preceding the codification of the bulk of the tradition, 
even more was made of this figure than later. 

There exist in the texts before us passages which owe their 
difficulties to the author’s confusion of the heavenly man and the 
protoplast on earth. In Book 3 of the right Ginza we have an 
extended account of how Ruha, the evil spirit, tempts a member of 
the antediluvian household.2?° The person is identified in the 
introduction as one of the sons of Adam?! and later mentioned in 
the text proper as “‘Adam the son of Adam.’’3? If the paternal 
Adam were, as the introduction would lead one to believe, the 

6 Cf. below, pp. 70-2. 

27 ML, p. 100. That this is the sense of the passage is vouched for by 
RG, pp. 109-10, where Adakas accompanies the soul to the body. 

28 RG, p. 118, 22-7. 

29 JB, p. 222, 1; ML, p. 248, 10. 

30 RG, pp. 127-33. 

aU RAG, p. 127, 26. 


82 RG, p, 129, 7. 
61 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


mundane protoplast, the tale would introduce into the legends of | 
the first days an entirely new and incongruous figure. It seems 
more likely therefore, that the tale was originally told of the proto- 
plast himself and was later transferred to one of his sons. The 
Adam who is the father of Adam must then be the heavenly Man. 

A similar confusion may underlie a passage in the rubrics of 
the Liturgies, where Adam the protoplast is represented as the 
father of Bihram the Great.?? Now Bihram is otherwise a 
member of the heavenly host, hence his father must too once 
have been the Adam Rabba. 

That the heavenly Man was once more important than at the 
time when the majority of our texts were composed, can also be 
shown in another way. The heavenly hierarchy as we usually 
find it, presents the following sequence of rank and emanation: 
The Life, Manda d’Haye, Hibil, Sitil, Anosh and the Uthras. In 
this form it represents the coalescence of two distinct theologies. 
The one embraces The Life, The Knowledge of Life and The Treas- 
ures (of Life). It is complete in itself. The other is represented 
by the Hibil-Sitil-Anosh group of messengers and is incomplete. 
It demands at its head the heavenly Adam, for without him the 
trio of his descendents could scarcely have aspired to the promi- 
nence they hold. Of the two superimposed theologies, the latter 
is probably the earlier, first, because it takes us into the proximity 
of Judaism, whence the Mandean sect sprang, secondly, because 
it has been mutilated and adapted in the newer order.?* The 
Great Adam who here and there appears in our texts was therefore 
at one time the most important person in the Mandean pleroma. 
The statement that the name Adam is the exclusive property of 
the Life, must be an echo of this conception. 3° 

Adam Rabba and his descendents, are of course, the corre- 
sponding Biblical antediluvians in that celestial character which 
they acquired in the legends of the post-canonical period of Jewish 
thought.?® Yet there is something that places them all one step 


: 33 ML, p. 120. 
34 The other must belong to the Mesopotamian period of Mandean develop- 
ment. 
35 Cf. above, p. 60. 


36 Cf. below, pp. 153-7. . 
62 


THE MANDEAN ANTHROPOS 


in advance of the Jewish development. That is in the first place 
their elevation from the rank of “‘heroes”’ to that of bona-fide 
divinities, as shown by the supreme position assigned to Adam, 
and by the element ‘“‘il’”’ in the names of Sitil (Seth) and Hibil 
(Abel). It is evident also from Adam’s activity in connection 
_ with the creation of the protoplast. In spite of the fact that in 
the case of the Great Adam, in whom we are interested at present, 
we have so few particulars by which to judge, it does not seem 
amiss to say that the transforming influence was the identifica- 
tion of the Jewish protoplast with the Anthropos. In name, 
position and activity he corresponds to the Anthropos of the 
earliest Syrian Gnostics, and Syria is the territory whence he is 
sprung. 


4. We come, now, to the other Adam, Adakas. He is described 
in two distinct ways. In the left Ginza we are told that he reposed 
in the secret treasure-chambers of Life?’ until sent forth into the 
world to fall or be thrown into the body,?® more specifically the 
body of the protoplast.29 He is ignorant of the reasons for his 
being sent and fears lest he be cut off from the house of his 
father.*° But by the intervention of divine agencies, the mes- 
sengers, he is informed of his destiny and finally released from his 
bonds to return to his heavenly home. 

The context in which this Adam stands in the left Ginza 
stamps him as the personification of the divine element which 
resides in the world and in each individual man.*! But Adakas 
is more than merely an immanent element of human nature. 
Even in the left Ginza the epithet ‘‘ hidden”’ no longer is determined 
by his indwelling in the human frame. It refers to the nature of 
the place whence he came, namely the ‘‘concealed treasure-house 
of God.’’42 In other texts he functions as a free agent among the 
heavenly beings. The Liturgies name him as one of the Uthras 


37 LG, p. 487, 29-30. 

38 LG, p. 486, 16-17. 

39 LG, p. 432, 6-8. 

40 LG, p. 499, 18. 

41 TE, pp. 43-59. 

42 RG, p. 244, 14; LG, p. 459, 23; p. 487, 25-9; p. 493, 6-7. 
63 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


who are to be praised and revered by all men.*? He accompanies 
the soul in its descent to the body of Adam the protoplast.++ 
Together with Anana d’Nhura he produces the messengers of 
salvation,4® in fact he himself functions as an ambassador of 
Life. *® 

That we have here’one and the same person described in two 
distinct ways is guaranteed by the name common to both repre- 
sentations as well as by Book 10 of the right Ginza, where an 
attempt has been made to merge the two descriptions into one 
account of the creation and salvation of the protoplast. *7 

A number of reasons indicate that Adakas is a manifestation 
of the Anthropos. In the left Ginza he stands in that peculiar 
relation to the messengers characteristic of the Manichean system 
and its conception of the Primal Man’s divided personality.+® 
The duality of his role, moreover, shows that there has been a, 
rapprochement between him and Adam Rabba. Particularly, 
we note that he corresponds to the ‘inner Man” of the pagan 
Naasene document of Syria.42 Together with Adam Rabba he 
must therefore belong to the earlier stage of Mandean theology 
and to the Anthropos tradition of Syria which this stage represents. 


5. In a number of Gnostic systems previously examined, the 
saviors were considered the manifestations of the one transcendent 
Anthropos. Is there evidence of such a conception among the 
Mandeans? | 

Of messengers of salvation the Mandeans know four, Manda 
d’Haye, and the trio Hibil, Sitil and Anosh. The first we have 
already rejected from among the number of those figures connected 
with the Anthropos. Our attention will therefore be confined 
to the trio. 

The first thing to be noted in this connection is that nowhere 


43 ML, p. 145. 
44 RG, pp. 109-10. 
4 RG, p. 118. 
46 RG, pp. 236-7. 
47 RG, pp. 240-49 and Lidzbarski’s preface to the Ginza. 
48 Cf. above, p. 22. 
49 Cf. above, p. 50. 
64 


THE MANDEAN ANTHROPOS 


do we find direct statements indicating that Hibil, Sitil and 
Anosh are three manifestations of one and the same transcendent 
person. Statements like those of the Liturgies ‘‘blessed be our 
father Hibil, Sitil and Anosh”’ cannot be considered evidence to 
the contrary.°° Whatever weight they might have is offset by 
the syncretizing tendency manifested in the texts as a whole, and 
by such statements as make them descendents one of another, 
and of Adam Rabba or Adakas.°! The question we have raised 
can be answered only by determining whether the character and 
actions of the messengers are such as to be intelligible only if they 
are the manifestations of one transcendent person. 

The Mandeans divide the course of the world’s history into 
four ages. Each of these ages has its messenger. Originally 
the messengers allotted to these periods must have been Adam, 
Hibil, Sitil and Anosh. The elevation of Adam to a position 
superior to that of the rest, the introduction of the ‘‘ Life” theology 
and Manda d’Haye upset this scheme, caused the almost entire 
disappearance of Sitil and made Hibil vie with Manda d’Haye as 
the messenger to the first generations of humanity. Through 
this collocation with Manda d’Haye, Hibil has gradually come to 
assimilate the characteristics of the former. Thus he appears as 
the one who at the beginning wrested from the powers of darkness 
the secret of their strength.°? In other texts he creates the world 
order, ** chastizes the recalcitrant stellar potentates, °* and finally 
acts as judge.°° If in certain phases of his activity he coincides 
with the Anthropos this coincidence is due not to his personal 
relation to that figure, but rather to his assimilation to Manda 
d’Haye.°® Together with Sitil, of whom we know almost nothing. 
he merits no further consideration. 

In the case of Anosh, matters are at a different pass. Of all 
the four messengers, he alone has preserved his original position, 

50 ML, pp. 41 and 106; cf. also Lidzbarski’s note ML, p. 41. 

51 RG, p. 251, 13-4; p. 269, 10. 

62 RG, bk. 5, part 1. 

53 Thid., bk. 10. 

54 Tbid., bk. 5, part 2. 

55 JB, pp. 169-70; p. 218. 

56 Brandt, MR, p. 216; Kessler, PRE (8rd ed.), vol. XII, p. 182. 

65 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


and that because he is the one sent in the last period of the world’s 
history. That period extended, originally from the flood to 
sometime shortly after the downfall of Jerusalem. Anosh is 
therefore the messenger to the age of the Hebrews. Of his activity 
we have an extended account, of remarkable antiquity. It 
shows us Anosh in conflict with Jesus the false Messiah. Coming 
with the clouds of heaven, Anosh heals the blind, the dumb and 
deaf, the lepers, the crippled and the lame (Is. 53, 5), routs the 
falsifier Jesus and sending forth from Jerusalem his disciples, 
returns heavenward. His ascent is followed by the destruction 
of the city.57 The man who composed the account undoubtedly 
regarded this event as a sign of the consummation of Anosh’s 
activity. Since that consummation meant the conclusion of the 
last period of the world’s history, the account cannot have been 
written at a time far removed from that of the downfall of Jeru- 
salem. °8 

-Reitzenstein to whose brilliant analysis of the account we owe 
these observations finds in the Anosh of the early document a 
soteriological manifestation of the Anthropos. Three reasons are 
given in support of this contention: 


1. That the literal significance of Anosh is “‘man,’”’ Anthropos. 

2. That Anosh is also termed Malala, “word” a name properly 
that of Adakas. 

3. That Anosh is in many respects similar to the New Testa- 
ment Son of Man (whom Reitzenstein also derives from the 
Anthropos) though independent of Gospel tradition. °? 

Of the reasons here given, the first two require little discussion. 
The relations between Anthropos and Anosh, if such there were, 
can have been determined fundamentally only by traits common 
to each and all of the trio to which he belongs. The name Anosh, 


57 The account is contained in apocalypse preserved in two versions, as 
Books 1 and 2 of the R. Ginza. 

58 Reitzenstein, Das mandaische Buch des Herrn der Grésse, Sitzb. Heidel. 
Akad., 1919, No. 12, pp. 37-8; ef. Lidzbarski, Introduction to the edition of 
the Ginza, p. xii. 

59 The third contention forms the thesis of MB, the others are mentioned 
therein on pp. 45-6. | 

66 


THE MANDEAN ANTHROPOS 


even if its literal significance was appreciated by the Mandeans, °° 
cannot be used to prove that he is a manifestation of the Anthropos. 
The cognomen Malala indicates nothing more than that Anosh 
belongs to a group of heavenly powers associated with the pro- 
mulgation of truth, a group the limits of which extend far beyond 
the pale of those whom it would be possible to connect with the 
-Anthropos. ®! 

The third contention of Reitzenstein, to which we are thus 
reduced, necessitates both investigation and elucidation, and in 
so far as it involves his conviction that all of the elements of the 
Manichean Anthropos theology are equally old, cannot be fully 
treated even here. 

It is well known to students of Christian tradition that the 
New Testament Son of Man diverges from the current Jewish 
Bar Nasha in that he represents not only the apocalyptic Messiah, 
but a messenger of the Kingdom as well. Anosh in the Mandean 
apocalypse corresponds to the New Testament type of Bar 
Nasha. But the description of Anosh can be shown to be inde- | 
pendent of New Testament tradition at the two points where there 
is greatest propinquity of thought. One involves a quotation 
from the Sophia (Wisdom) (Le. 11, 49), the other a quotation 
from Isaiah 53, 5 in Le. 22.62 Now the Jewish Bar Nasha, 
Reitzenstein contends, is not a spontaneous development on 
Jewish soil. He represents a Hebrew adaptation of the ancient 
Oriental Anthropos. The plus of the New Testament Son of 
Man over the Jewish Bar Nasha, unintelligible as it is in the light 
of Jewish sources alone, should have its origin in the prototype 
of which the Jewish Bar Nasha is an adaptation, namely the 
Anthropos. Since in its plus, the New Testament figure coincides 
with Anosh, since Anosh is independent of Gospel tradition and 
since the Mandeans harbor the Anthropos, therefore Anosh is 
the soteriological manifestation of the Anthropos. 

As in so many other instances, Reitzenstein has here again 
clearly perceived the problems and possibilities presented by a 


60 MB, p. 45. 
1 Malala is applied also to Jawar, RG, p. 291, 31; and Jokabar, ML, p. 35. 
62 MB, pp. 41-72. 

67 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


new text. Indeed it may be necessary to accept his contention 
that in the two points where the Synoptic and Mandean tradition 
meet, the latter is actually independent of (but not necessarily 
prior to) the former. It does not follow, however, that because 
in its description of Anosh it differs together with the Gospels 
from the known Jewish tradition the Mandaic document is a 
pure reflection of the third and ultimate source from which both 
were taken. Anosh and the New Testament Son of Man, where 
they agree, may be two independent developments from a common 
stock which is not directly the Anthropos tradition. 

As far as the Mandean messengers are concerned, that stock 
may be the conception of the Adamites current in Jewish circles 
of the post-Maccabean period. It is a familiar fact that Jewish 
religious literature of this period embraces many works bearing the 
names of Adam, Seth, Enoch, Noah and others. The production 
of these pseudepigrapha requires that the antediluvians as a whole 
be considered capable of revealing to men the hidden oracles of 
God. Moreover, some, if not all of the antediluvians were believed 
destined to return again and to act as forerunners of the consum- 
mation.®* Anosh, together with Hibil and Sitil, may be just 
such a revealer and forerunner, transferred to a Gnostic sphere 
and elevated there to a transcendent position. Whether any 
importance attaches to this supposition in connection with the 
Son of Man inquiry is a matter to be discussed later. Suffice it 
to say that the argument connecting Hibil, Sitil and Anosh 
directly with the Anthropos is not convincing. 

The matter of the savior’s identity has been approached from 
yet another angle in the study of the Mandean texts. In the 
left Ginza we meet a conception of the messenger which in some 
respects coincides with that already considered, but in other 
respects goes beyond it. The designations applied to the mes- 
senger in the left Ginza are usually the generic terms savior and 
helper.©° This savior not only informs the soul of its heavenly 
origin, he returns at the death of the particular person and at the 


63 Volz, Jtidische Eschatologie (1903), pp. 193-4. 
64 This is presupposed by the addition “il’’ to the names Hibil and Sitil. 
65 Cf. Lidzbarski’s introduction to LG, bk. 2. 

68 


THE MANDEAN ANTHROPOS 


end of the world, to lead the individual and world soul upward 
to its home.®® Twice we are given to understand that he is 
related to the soul in a peculiar manner, so for instance in the 
passage where the soul on leaving the body declares: 

I go to meet my image 

And my image come to meet me; 

It fondles and embraces me 

As though I were returning from captivity.® 

Reitzenstein has given special attention to the words of this 
text. Soul and messenger are to each other, says he, as the soul 
and the ‘“‘maiden in its likeness” in the Fihrist, or as the “‘self’’ 
and Zarathushtra in the Zarathushtra Fragment.®® All have 
their common origin in the Anthropos theology where messenger 
and soul are the two manifestations of the one divided personality. 

Now the term ‘‘image”’ as used in the Mandean texts in con- 
nection with individuals, has a variety of connotations.®? It is 
true, however, that no one of them is as applicable in the passage 
under discussion as that which Reitzenstein has quoted from the 
Fihrist. As we have previously seen, the ‘“‘maiden in the likeness 
of the soul,’ who according to An-Nadim meets the departing 
spirit, is probably the Iranian daena, the hypostasized conscience, 
a being independent of the Anthropos theology even in the 
Manichean tradition. /° 

At first glance the interpretation of the Fihrist thus adopted, 
might seem to set aside a possible relation between the messenger 
of the left Ginza and the Anthropos. Such is not the case. There 
is a difference between the soul’s image in the left Ginza and the 
‘“‘maiden”’ of the Fihrist. The former is more than merely the 
spiritual complement of the soul. It is also the messenger of 
salvation.”! In this respect, then, the Zarathushtra Fragment 

66 Cf. for instance LG, pp. 472-3. 

67 Tbid., pp. 559, 29-32; 461, 31. 

68 TK, pp. 43-59 and its place in the scheme of the book. 

69 Cf. the glossary in the index of the Ginza under “‘Abbild.’”’ The closest 
parallel is RG, p. 178, 5, where the evil powers say to their God, ‘thou art 
our image and we are thy image” and demand protection for this reason. 

70 Cf. above, p. 35, n. 101. 


1 LG, p. 461, 31. 
69 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


furnishes a closer parallel. We should therefore be inclined to 
regard the passage from the left Ginza that is under consideration, 
as one the thought of which is determined by the Anthropos 
theology. In origin and character, however, it is late, for it 
shows us the Iranian daena, which to Mani was still an independent 
theological element, drawn into the vortex of the conceptions 
centering around the Anthropos. Hence it can shed no light 
upon the ultimate identity of the Mandean saviors themselves. 


6. Though the heavenly Adam and Adakas are, strictly 
speaking, the true and original elements of the Mandean Anthropos 
theology (which here again lacks the soteriological element), there 
are in the Mandean system a number of other figures into the 
description of which have been refracted elements of that particular 
form of the Anthropos tale previously encountered only in the 
Poimandres and the Gospel of Mary. Of course both the name 
and the original associations of the heavenly man have long since 
been lost from view, but the situation presented in the Egyptian 
texts is still clearly preserved. | 

Abatur, the man with the scales, the Iranian Rashnu,’? is one 
of the figures affected by this story. In the first part of the fifth 
book, right Ginza, when Hibil returns from his primordial conflict 
with the king of darkness, he is addressed by his superior with the 
words: 


Hail, Hibil, pure Mana. Joshamin has called into being 
three sons. One guards the nest of his father, one dwells with 
his father, and one, Abatur, goes to that world in which thou 
hast been and perceives his image in the black waters, and his 
image and son is formed for him from the black water. 


Hibil then relates: 


When the Life, my father, had thus spoken, Abatur arose and 
opened the gate and gazed into the black water and at the same 
hour his likeness was formed in the black water and Ptahil was 
formed and ascended to the borderland. Abatur considered 


72 JB, introduction, pp. xxix-xxx. For Zoroastrian and Manichean refer- 
ences as to the “balance,” see Prof. Jackson’s observation in Pavry, The Zor. 
Doct. of a Fut. Life, p. 68, n. 42; p. 81, n. 44. 

70 


THE MANDEAN ANTHROPOS 


Ptahil and said to his son Ptahil: Come, come Ptahil, thou art 
he whom I perceived in the black water.73 


The episode is referred to also in a part of the last book of the right 
Ginza where we read: 
. .. then Abatur . . . reflected and perceived himself and 


perceived his likeness and he created Adam the man and created 
for him Eve.74 


The motif recurring in these passages, namely, creation by the 
perception of one’s image, is clearly that which characterizes the 
Poimandres form of the Anthropos tale. In the first it is employed 
to explain the creation of the demiurge, a fact that shows why 
Abatur’s expected descent to the water has been replaced by 
Ptahil’s ascent to the borderland, but in the last it is still associated 
with the creation of man. 

The Qolasta, describing Josmir and Sam Smir, two genii 
ultimately resolving themselves into the one ‘‘protected Mana,” 
seems to give us a further glimpse of this peculiar story. 

The believer in one instance asks the Life ‘‘ whose son am I?” 
The answer explaining the divine origin of the soul is given in the 
following words: 

The protected Mana, . . . the great effulgence of the First 


Life, the Son of the great First Life, he who reflected and having 
considered, sought his own, from him came the stock of souls.”® 


The protected Mana is here Josmir, but the identical statement 
“‘he reflected and considered and sought his own” is made also 


73 RG, pp. 173-4. 

74 Tbid., p. 408. The first words of the passage read: “Then Abatur and 
Ptahil reflected and perceived himself.”” As Lidzbarski has noted, one of the 
two subjects is superfluous, here as well as in a passage immediately previous 
(p. 407 and n. 2), because of the singular of the verb. Lidzbarski, however, 
incorrectly chooses to omit Abatur in both cases. Ptahil should be omitted 
here because of the parallel passage RG, pp. 173-4, while Abatur should be 
omitted, p. 407. The doubling arose from the fact than a Mandean editor 
failed to comprehend the distinction between the creative activity of Ptahil 
and Abatur. Incidentally, LG, p. 568, 31-4 “the man who perceived himself”’ 
may be another echo of the situation here recorded. The text requires ad- 
justment. 

7’ ML, p. 86. 

71 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


of Sam Smir. How shall we interpret the cryptic utterance? It 
seems to represent Abatur’s or the Anthropos’ consideration of 
and desire for his image. The interpretation is justified by the 
fact that both of the figures of which the Qolasta speaks are 
otherwise also associated with the primordial deep. Sam Smir 
resides ‘above the billows of water”7® while Josmir is described 
as ‘‘the man who was joined to the waters,’’’ the description 
recalling the ascent of Ptahil to the borderland and the descent of 
Abatur to the deep. 

If then, Josmir and Sam Smir in part reflect the Anthropos of 
the Poimandres, significance may attach to another passage of the 
Qolasta, where it is said of Sam Smir, that: 


The stock of souls which has come forth from him, will at the 
last day rejoice in him and will embrace him and they go and 
behold the outer air and the resplendent dwelling.”® 


The words recall nothing so much as the reappearance of the 
Manichean Primal Man in company with the world soul at the 
end of time. How old this bit of the tradition may be it is difficult 
to say. Certainly the Mandean echoes of the Poimandres tale 
are later than that tale itself. The final reunion of the souls 
with the one from whom they have sprung cannot therefore be the 
original ending of the Poimandres account. 

Looking back over those portions of the Mandean theology 
which we have considered, we gain the following picture of its 
development and of the place of the Anthropos tradition within 
the development. The Mandeans began as a Jewish sect which 
regarded the antediluvians, Adam to Anosh as men who knew 
the counsels of God and who were destined to return at specified 
times to reveal these counsels to men. The coming of Anosh they 
experienced in the period of Jesus’ activity in Jerusalem. Further- 
more, like the Essenes they regarded the soul as a divine element 
imprisoned in the body. Brought into contact with the Anthropos 
tradition, they transcendentalized the first of the messengers, 


76 Ibid., p. 16. 
77 Ibid. 
8 Tbid. 


J 
bo 


THE MANDEAN ANTHROPOS 


Adam, and were taught to consider the soul as something related 
to him. The deification of Adam led naturally to the transcen- 
dentalization of those of his earthly descendents who like him had 
previously been looked upon as messengers of truth. Their 
identity and office was preserved to them, but they functioned 
henceforth as deities. At some time during this stage of the 
development the Mandeans became acquainted with an approxi- 
mation of the Poimandres’ account of the Anthropos, an account 
into which they injected Gnostic and Iranian deities at a later 
time. Subsequent to the period when they were subject to 
influence from the Anthropos tradition, the Mandeans were 
familiarized with a ‘‘Life Theology”? which introduced a new 
cosmogony, dislocated and finally obscured Adam Rabba and 
confused the sequence of the messengers’ appearance and their 
character. Finally under Manichean influence they learned 
to think of a relation of soul and messenger in terms of the Anthro- 
pos Theology of Mani. 

The knowledge of the Anthropos must have come to the 
Mandeans while they were yet in Palestine, for Adakas, though he 
represents the Soul, is really an immanent double of Adam Rabba, 
after the analogy of the Syrian Son of Man. The value of the 
Mandean evidence relating to the Anthropos is slight. It serves 
as a check upon our interpretation of the earlier Syrian sources, 
and, since the Mandeans must have quit Palestine before or 
during the campaigns of Hadrian, shows that the Anthropos tradi- 
tion had, at the beginning of the second century, completed a 
period of extensive expansion. 


73 


CHAPTER V 
THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


THE apocalyptic Son of Man is one of the phases of the ubiqui- 
tous Oriental Anthropos. That is the contention advanced by 
Reitzenstein as a premise to his solution of the Son of Man problem 
in its New Testament aspects. 

We have pursued the Anthropos through the Gnostic maze 
and found him taking many different shapes. It is by no means 
impossible that still other manifestations of this figure once 
existed. Before it will be possible to accept the contention of 
Reitzenstein, however, it will be necessary to inquire, first, whether 
the origin and antiquity of the figure are such as to permit his 
appearance in the sphere of time and place occupied by the Bar 
Nasha, and secondly, whether and to what extent the comparison 
of Bar Nasha and Anthropos is necessary and illuminating. The 
former of these questions will occupy our attention for the present. 

1. At first glance it might seem as though Reitzenstein’s 
statement were a contradiction of the obvious, and as though the 
Anthropos were really a Christian development. Two facts 
appear to point in this direction, first, that the Anthropos becomes 
visible on our horizon only after the synoptic Son of Man, and 
secondly, that the Christian Bar Nasha has formatively influenced 
the Gnostic Anthropos. The first of these facts is evident from 
the chronology of the sources already examined, the second from 
the Gnostic use of the name Son of Man and the presence of the 
theological Christ in the number of the Anthropos’ soteriological 
manifestations. One might therefore be tempted to conclude 
that the ‘‘Man”’ is a Gnostic invention, the postulated father of 
the Christian ‘‘Son of Man.”’ 

74 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


If we regard the matter more closely, however, the Christian 
origin of the Anthropos becomes quite impossible and that for a 
number of reasons: 


1. Because our earliest information concerning the Anthropos 
comes from channels independent of all Christian thought,—the 
Chaldean tale, the Pagan Naasene Document and the Poimandres. 

2. Because his contemporary appearance at the beginning of 
the second century in Mesopotamia, Syria and Egypt, presupposes 
for him a far greater antiquity than that evinced by the sources. 

3. Because what the earliest documents mention are his 
anthropogenetic and heroic activities, that is those capacities in 
which he is distinct from the Jewish and Christian Son of Man, 
and which, if he were a Christian product would necessarily be 
later agglutinations, not primary manifestations. 

4. Because among pagan Gnostics and Christian syncretists 
he is reputed to be of ‘‘Chaldean” origin and is known most 
intimately from Mesopotamian theologies. 


The evidence for Christian influence upon the Anthropos can 
therefore do no more than raise the question, is his soterzological 
capacity a product of Christian thought? The answer to this 
question can of course be given only after the origin of the under- 
lying pagan figure has become reasonably clear. 

The discussions of the last years have given rise to a number of 
hypotheses concerning the source from which this Gnostic person- 
age has sprung. Between them they have utilized virtually all 
the avenues of approach in any way promising for a solution of 
the problem. The hypotheses may be divided into two classes, 
completely divergent one from another. Such a divergence in the 
analysis of a Gnostic figure is by no means surprising, indeed it is 
typical of the interpretation of almost every phase of Hellenistic 
civilization and culture. As in the discussion of Hellenistic art 
‘“Orient or Rome’’ are the poles of opinion concerning its origin, 
and as in the analysis of Gnosticism as a whole Harnack’s “acute 
Hellenization of Christianity” and Bousset’s ‘‘ predominantly 
Oriental character”’ vie with one another, so too, Kast and West, 

75 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


myth and philosophy, hoary legend and modern speculation are 
invoked to explain the genesis of the Anthropos. 

Four attempts, at least, have been made to show that the 
Anthropos is the product of philosophic speculation, by H. Leise- 
gang, E. Meyer, W. Scott and E. Bevan, respectively. Of these 
the first has its place in a fruitful and illuminating discussion of 
Gnosticism as a whole. Gnosis, Leisegang believes, is a religious 
development in which Greek metaphysics are translated into 
mythology by the use of oriental imagination and ancient eastern 
symbols, for the production of a more vivid and colorful interpreta- 
tion of the character and destiny of the world and man.! As 
early as the days of Philo, he says, the correspondence between 
macrocosm and microcosm gave rise to a peculiar interpretation 
of the ideal world of the metaphysicians. The Alexandrine philo- 
sopher describes the conception in the following terms: 


Some have been bold enough to assert that man, the insignifi- 
cant creature, is equal to the whole cosmos, seeing that both 
are composed of a body and a rational soul. Thus they speak 
alternately of man as a small cosmos, and of the cosmos as a 
large man.? 


The Gnostic Anthropos is none other than this large or great 
Man, the personification of the cosmic Logos, says Leisegang. 

As a matter of fact that is exactly what the supreme Anthropos 
does amount to in the Christian strata of the Naasene document. 
Shorn of his cosmic content the same Logos is associated with the 
Anthropos, as we have seen, in the system of Valentinus, as his 
father, and in the Poimandres as his brother, while in the Gospel 
of Mary, the Man is none other than the sum of Nous and Ennoia, 
whose manifestation the cosmic Logos represents. 

There is then ample evidence for the connection of western 
metaphysics and the Anthropos, yet it is highly problematic 
whether this speculation was actually the formative agency respon- 
sible for his existence as Leisegang holds, or merely a secondary 
influence transforming his character. 

1H. Leisegang, Die Gnosis (1924), pp. 1-59. 

2Quis Rer. Div. Haeres, par. 155 (ed. minor, ed. Cohn-Wendland), cf. 


Leisegang, op. cit., pp. 117-8. 
76 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


It is not difficult to perceive that there is a distinct difference 
between the “large Man” of Philo and the Anthropos. The 
former is a figurative representation of the material cosmos, 
while the latter is a transcendent being, at best the cosmic Logos. 
The “‘large Man”’ is thus no nearer the Anthropos than the Iranian 
Gayomart whom Reitzenstein proposes as the Anthropos’ proto- 
type, because the Iranian figure, similarly endowed with macro- 
cosmic significance, has also to be transcendentalized before it 
can be considered the origin of the Anthropos.* If the question 
at issue is to be decided on the basis of the Anthropos’ macrocosmic 
role, a choice between the hypotheses of Leisegang and Reitzen- 
stein would depend upon the answer given to the broader question, 
as to whether the basic elements and figures of Gnosticism are 
western and metaphysical, or eastern and mythological? Of this 
more presently. 

Perhaps the opinion advanced by Leisegang in connection 
with the Ophite Anthropos, is to be considered not by itself but 
in connection with the earlier investigations made by him into 
the nature of Philo’s ‘‘heavenly Man.’’4 

Philo, it will be recalled, discourses at length, in a number of 
his treatises, and particularly in the tracts ‘“‘On the Creation of 
the World” and ‘‘The Allegories of the Sacred Laws,”’ concerning 
a “‘heavenly Man,” for the existence of whom he finds evidence in 
the Old Testament.° This “heavenly Man” Reitzenstein and 
Bousset first considered a further echo of the pagan, and for them 
ultimately Iranian Anthropos, in fact an important link in the 
Anthropos tradition. A subsequent reéxamination of the material 
upon which this interpretation was placed, conducted by Bréhier 
and Leisegang, showed quite conclusively that what is actually 
said concerning the “heavenly Man,’ disorganized and inharmoni- 

3 Cf. below, p. 89. 

4 Leisegang’s article ‘Zum iranischen Erlésungsmysterium”’ in which the 
consequences of his position must appear we have not been able to consult, 
since the periodical in which it was published, ‘Ztschrft f. Missionskunde u. 
Religionswissenschaft,”’ vol. xxxvi (1921), pp. 257-64, 289-99, is not acces- 
sible to us. 

5 Particularly, de Opif. Mundi, §§ 69 and 134-5, Leg. Alleg. I, §§ 31-43. 

6 Bousset, HP, pp. 194-6, ef. Reitzenstein, Poimandres, p. 110. 

77 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


ous as it is, can be satisfactorily explained as having been evolved 
from the Old Testament by the use of Platonic and Stoic specula- 
tion.’ The only question raised by the “heavenly Man” is. 
thus, what was it that interested Philo in developing him. Surely 
Platonic metaphysics placed no greater emphasis upon the pre- 
existent idea or type of man, to which he corresponds in part, 
than upon the types of all the other genera of material existence. 

Now in other instances where Philo dwells with special care 
upon a point arising.only incidentally in his exegesis of the Old 
Testament, his expatiations are likely to be inspired by apologetic 
motives. So, for example, his discussions concerning the nature 
of Time, though they follow the reasoning of Plato, owe their 
repeated appearance to a polemic against some form of the Aion 
cult.2 One might therefore consider the ‘heavenly Man” an 
attempt to offset the pagan Anthropos speculation. While this 
view seems tenable, it is not the only possible explanation of the 
phenomena. As we shall have occasion to observe in the next 
chapter, the Jewish people had, since the second pre-Christian 
century developed a growing interest in matters primordial, 
particularly in the protoplast and his immediate descendents. 
This interest eventually produced what we may call the ‘“Adam 
Literature” a group of narratives concerned with a ‘‘celestial 
Adam.’”’9 Now there is good evidence to show that Philo was 
familiar with the ‘‘celestial Adam” of Jewish legend.!® His 
interest in the protoplast, therefore, does not need to be accounted 
for by his supposed knowledge of the Anthropos. Indeed his 
‘heavenly Man” may be no more than a metaphysical interpreta- 
tion and adaptation of the Jewish ‘‘ celestial Adam.” 

Whatever influence the denial of the identity of Anthropos 


7 Bréhier, Philon d’Alexandrie (1907), pp. 121-6, Leisegang, Pneuwma 
Hagion (1919), p. 78, note 5, and pp. 102-12. 

8 Cf. the harmless statements of de Opif. Mundi, §§ 26-7 (= Plato, Timaeus, 
37D-38C), and Leg. Alleg. I, § 2, with Quaestiones, § 100 where it is said: 
“Time under the name of Chronos or Saturn is looked upon as a God by the 
wickedest of men who are desirous of losing sight of the one essential Being.”’ 

* Cf. below, Chapter 6, pp. 151-56. 

10 Cf. de Opificio Mundi, §§ 77-88 where Philo suddenly deserts his meta- 
physical man and begins to glorify the protoplast himself. 

78 


THE ORIGIN AND. ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


and Philonic “heavenly Man” may have had upon Leisegang’s 
ideas regarding the origin and development of the Anthropos, it 
has led E. Meyer and W. Scott to the conjecture that the Anthro- 
pos is but a pagan echo of the Philonic figure.!!_ The position of 
Reitzenstein has thus been reversed. 

In both cases the conjecture referred to was suggested by the 
analysis of the Poimandres. It is not difficult to understand how 
anyone confining his attention to the Anthropos tradition of the 
Hermetic tract might be led to such a conclusion. There are in 
the Poimandres distinct echoes of, the scriptural narratives of 
creation and possibly also of the interpretation placed upon them 
by Philonic exegesis.!2 Yet if we regard the Anthropos tradition 
as a whole, there are eminent reasons why the ultimate origin of 
the pagan figure cannot be found in metaphysical postulates such 
as the “heavenly Man”’ of Philo. 

If the former were truly developed from the latter it would 
mean that all the elements embodied in the description of the 
Anthropos’ activity are secondary accretions syncretistically 
inspired, for the “‘heavenly Man” lacks all the mythological 
plasticity and vitality that characterizes the Anthropos. That is 
quite improbable for two reasons. 

In the first place, wherever, as in Syria, we have a number of 
superimposed strata of Anthropos traditions, the metaphysical 
are secondary to the mythological. Our earliest traditions from 
Syria speak of the “great, most glorious and perfect Man.”’ They 
tell of many hymns glorifying him.'? Only the later strata 
speak of the Anthropos as “the All” or the ‘‘unmoulded Mind.” 
Even in the Poimandres there is presupposed something more 
than the metaphysical Man, namely the mythological ‘‘heroic’’ 
Anthropos.! 4 

In the second place the sequence of elements postulated by 


11). Meyer, Ursprung des Christentums, vol. II (1921), pp. 371-7. W. 
Scott, Hermetica, vol. II (1925), pp. 4-5 and notes on Libellus I, §§ 12-17. 
12 Meyer, op. cit., pp. 375-6, admitted with qualifications by Reitzenstein, 
Studien, pp. 23-4. 
13 Hipp. V, 6, 5; 7, 7. 
14 Cf. below, p. 97. 
79 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


the conjectures of Meyer, Scott and Leisegang is contrary to the 
normal course of development in Gnostic theology, or at least 
insufficient as an explanation of the phenomena involved. We 
have in Gnosticism many examples of Oriental mythological 
figures that paled and lost color as they came into contact with 
Hellenistic rationalism. On the other hand, there are to our 
knowledge no examples of metaphysical postulates that traveled 
eastward and became mythologized while keeping their identity 
intact, save where there already existed in the Orient similar 
figures and concepts with which they were and could be identi- 
fied.15 The origin of the Anthropos can therefore hardly be 
found in the “heavenly Man” alone. It requires a similar 
Oriental personage in addition. 

Finally the metaphysical interpretation of the Anthropos fails 
to take note of the fact that our Gnostic sources explicitly mention 
Chaldea as the home of the figure, and that the oldest tradition 
that we have concerning it, is the ‘‘Chaldean Tale” embodied in 
the pagan Naasene document. Chaldea is the last place where 
one would expect speculative forces to have been operative in his 
production. 

It appears, therefore, as though the metaphysical interpreta- 
tion of the Anthropos is the work of secondary forces brought to 
play upon him at his introduction into circles familiar with both 
oriental myth and Greek philosophy. 

Bevan, in ‘‘ Hellenism and Christianity,” has recently thrown 
out a further suggestion regarding the origin of the Anthropos. 
The Christian Christ, he finds, is distinctly a novum in the field of 
ancient thought. To him the Hellenistic and Gnostic Soters owe | 
their character. The Gnostic Soter, in so far as he differs from 
the Christian Christ, represents but the Pythagorean-Platonic 
conception of the heavenly soul’s descent to and reascent from 
the material world, assimilated to the Christ in the achievement of 
salvation.!® As we have seen, the Anthropos plays in the world 
a dual role. He is the divine element residing in man and the 
cosmos, and simultaneously the savior who, as its complement, 

18 The Logos is an example of the exception. 

16 Hellenism and Christianity (1921), pp. 104-5. 

80 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


comes to the world for its redemption. In the latter capacity he 
has distinctly come under the influence of Christian thought. Is 
he not then an excellent example of the truth of Bevan’s contention, 
particularly in view of the fact that his name, Anthropos, might 
be explained as a derivative from the term ‘‘inner Man” used of 
the divine element in man by Paul and Plotinus?!7 

The hypothesis is captivating, but it involves real difficulties, 
not the least of which is to be found in the premise upon which it 
is constructed. 

It is quite true that in many respects the Christian Christ 
represented an innovation to the people of the ancient world. 
The avidity with which syncretistic minds availed themselves of 
his person is the best evidence for this fact. Yet to say that he is 
entirely new, and that the Gnostic Soters, in so far as they differ 
from him, owe their character to the assimilation of the Soul in 
the Soul Drama is hardly plausible. In the first place, the concept 
of redemption is not a Christian product and redeemers in a higher 
or lower sense existed before the advent of Christianity at least in 
Hellenistic transformations of the eastern fertility cults.1? Without 
them the Christ of Paul would have been unintelligible and un- 
desirable to the syncretists. Not because he was completely new, 
but because he was in many respects superior to current types, 
for instance in his historical appearance, did he become the 
dominant force in Hellenistic syncretistic soteriology. In the 
second place, the use of the soul in this connection is unnecessary. 
The descent from and ascent to a forgotten heavenly home, which 
she serves to explain, according to Bevan, can be accounted for 
in a much simpler way. True, the vegetational deities of the 
pre-Hellenistic fertility cults from whom the pagan savior appears 
to have developed show no traces of such an ascent or descent. 
Yet the change in the religious atmosphere of the East which 
accounted for the increase of their prominence naturally brought 
with it a new conception of their relation to the physical cosmos. 
The change in atmosphere was occasioned by the confluence of 


172. Cor. 4, 16; Enneads V, 1, 10 (ed. Volkmar). 
18 Cf. Hans Lietzmann, Der Weltheiland (1909), and P. Wendland, Die 
hellenistische-rémische Kultur, 2nd ed. (1912), pp. 154-5. 
81 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


Greek and Iranian dualism. The material world became the 
expression of all that was bad. A deity that was thought to foster 
on earth the beneficent processes of vegetational growth, of life 
itself, therefore could readily take on increased significance, and 
be considered capable of re-creating life in its human form. What 
is more to the point, such a deity must represent the manifesta- 
tion of a power belonging to a world other than this material 
cosmos. It must descend to and reascend from the world of evil 
existence. : 

The real question which we must ask ourselves in connection 
with Bevan’s hypothesis, is, can the Anthropos be explained as a 
type of the Gnostic-Hellenistic savior. Only a negative answer 
is possible because none of the Soters, so far as we know them, 
function, as the Anthropos, in the capacity of both primordial - 
champion and father of mankind.!? Secondarily Bevan’s words 
might lead one to ask, can the Anthropos be explained as a peculiar 
form of Psyche in the Soul-myth? Either the Western philosophi- 
cal or Gnostic mythological form of the Soul Drama might serve: 
as a basis of comparison. The latter has been invoked already 
by Scheftelowitz. 

Mani’s Primal Man, Scheftelowitz finds, is essentially a 
Gnostic product. He has developed from the Mandean concep- 
tion that a ‘‘heavenly, spiritual being, sent to combat the material 
powers of darkness and captured by them, is held imprisoned till 
redeemed by a divine savior and finally guided back to the world 
of spirit.””?° This Mandean idea has been evolved, it is claimed, 
through the medium of Gnostic theologies such as those of Marcion, 
Apelles and Justin, systems that furnish the dramatis personae of 
the action in the nature of a Good God, an Evil God and a mediator 
between them.?! Eventually it may be traced, however, to the 
Essene conception of man as a mixture of celestial and terrestrial 
elements and the soul as a heavenly being imprisoned in earthly 
surroundings. 7? 


19 Bousset, HP, pp. 238-76. 
20 Entstehung, p. 66. 
21 [bid., pp. 67-9. 
22 Thid., pp. 31-2. 
82 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


It was comparatively simple for Scheftelowitz to determine 
the origin of the Anthropos, first because he considers only the 
Manichean phase of the figure and in addition even differentiates 
between the Manichean Primal Man and Ormuzd, thereby lessen- 
ing the scope of the Primal Man tremendously, and finally because 
he is able with utter disregard of the governing forces in the reli- 
gious development of the syncretistic East, to make original causes 
out of such final products as the theology of Marcion and the 
Essene sect. 

We, on the other hand, find it impossible to distinguish between 
Primal Man and Ormuzd in the Manichean texts, partly because 
of what the Manichean texts themselves show and partly because 
the Anthropos appears in the capacities of champion and savior 
over a century before Mani.?? Any endeavor to find in the 
Soul Drama, Eastern or Western, the origin of the Anthropos 
myth, therefore seems doomed to failure. It fails to account for 
the Anthropos’ primordial role, and for the properties that make 
him a personality even more distinct than the oriental Psyche. 
It would be far more natural to assume that the capacities of 
some highly individual mythological champion had been second- 
arily extended by influence from the Soul Drama, than to suppose 
that enough energy had radiated from the passive and placid 
figure of Psyche to cause the agglutination of foreign traits in a 
quantity sufficient to transform her into the Anthropos. What 
the inherent value of the first of these assumptions may be, is a 
question the discussion of which will need be reserved until after 
the quest for the ultimate basis for the Anthropos has been 
completed. 

The examination of the efforts to derive the Anthropos from 
the Soul Drama has led us from the hypotheses that link him with 
the West, to those which seek his home in the Hellenistic Orient. 
With this transition we find ourselves in general accord. The 
ultimate origin of such a figure as the Anthropos can scarcely be 
found in those elements of its religious life which the littoral 
Near East acquired from the West. After all, the influence of 
Greece upon the religious life of the Orient was far more a matter 

23 Cf. above, pp. 42-3, 50-1. 

83 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


of new view points, new modes of expression, of the liberalization 
and universalization of current views and their use toward higher 
and more personal ends, than it was an inculcation of new forms, 
and the introduction of new symbols and figures. In the East we 
have therefore to continue our search for the origin of the An- 
thropos. : | 

Among the designations applied to the Anthropos, that of 
Adam frequently appears. Indeed, it asserts itself prominently 
in those sources which lay greatest claim to antiquity, the Pagan 
Naasene Document and the early Mandean theology. Was the 
Anthropos called Adam because that was the natural name for 
the people of Syria to associate with a person considered the 
prototype of humanity, or does he actually represent the Adam of 
Genesis 1-2 in a Gnostic mode, transformed, let us say by the 
influence of the Soul Drama and the Gnostic Soter? With only 
the stories of Genesis to work upon, such a combination would 
scarcely have been possible of achievement, but, as we have 
already heard, and shall have occasion to hear more at length, 
the figure of Adam had in Jewish times been elevated to a level 
far transcending that of the protoplast in the Old Testament. 4 
Such a celestial Adam, carried over into a dualistic atmosphere 
‘might well be considered capable of assimilating a number of 
traits and capacities. Yet there seem to be at least three reasons 
why the influence of even the Jewish Adam upon the Anthropos, 
shown in the use of the name and elsewhere, should be considered 
secondary rather than formative. 

In the first place, a combination such as that projected would 
fail to motivate the fact that the Anthropos appears in a primor- 
dial conflict. In the second place, the Jewish origin of the 
Gnostic figure would make the joint appearance of Anthropos and 
celestial Adam in the Mandaic theology unintelligible. Finally the 
difficulty of considering the celestial Adam himself a rectilinear 
development from Hebrew conceptions may possibly necessitate 
a reverse derivation and thus offer an equally acceptable explana- 
tion of the similarities between the Jewish and the pagan figures. 

To our knowledge no one has as yet endeavored to derive the 

24 Cf. below, pp. 151-6. 

84 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


Anthropos either from orthodox Jewish sources or directly from 
some Babylonian prototype.2° In both spheres points of contact 
undoubtedly exist. Marduk, particularly, might furnish the 
victorious champion and cosmogonal agent whom we miss in the 
other fields, but here as there, the differentia are such as to prohibit 
our finding in him the ultimate origin of the Anthropos. There is 
no reason for instance, why Marduk should merit the name “‘man,”’ 
especially since the possibility of his being identified with the 
Hebrew protoplast is entirely out of question. 

What we need as the prototype of the Anthropos is a figure 
quite distinct from any of those hitherto examined. It will needs 
belong to the divine sphere, have some ulterior significance and 
yet be capable of being identified with humanity or more specific- 
ally with the ultimate ancestor of the human race. 

2. Bousset and Reitzenstein believe to have found in Iran a 
mythological personage, Gayomart, that will supply the necessary 
basis for the growth and development of the Gnostic Anthropos. 
The two scholars originally associated with this hypothesis have 
done little more than point to and describe the proposed proto- 
type and certain incidental or basic similarities between him and 
the Anthropos in some of his manifestations.2® This does not 
signify that they have not given their theory careful consideration. 
It merely shows that they have exercised scholarly caution in the 
use of the Iranian sources, since they were not Iranologists, and 
as a consequence have never analyzed the development of the 
Anthropos in all its scope. For any one but a specialist in the 
field to consider the Iranian origin of the Anthropos more in 
detail would scarcely be feasible, were it not that since the hy- 
pothesis was first promulgated three independent inquiries have 


25 Of course the Chaldean Tale, Zosimus and perhaps Aristides (Apology, 
ch. 3 and 7) connect the Anthropos speculation with Chaldea, but this signi- 
fies merely that the speculation came from Mesopotamia westward, not 
necessarily that Chaldea was its home ultimately. Besides the name Chaldean 
is loosely employed by Westerners in the Hellenistic age. To Aristides, so his 
editors felt, Chaldean was anything not Greek, Jewish, Egyptian or Christian, 
hence, Barbarian. Hippolytus speaks of Zarathushtra as a Chaldean (I, 2, 12). 

26 Bousset, HP, Chapter 4; Reitzenstein, Poimandres, pp. 81-114, recently 
also, Studien, parts I-VII. 

85 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


been made into the traditions concerning the Indo-Iranian proto- 
plasts by competent scholars.?” While these inquiries do not 
register complete agreement, they present the available material 
and serve the outsider as a guide in venturing into the Iranian 
sphere of thought. 

The multiform traditions of Iran, we are told, present a 
number of figures associated in one way or another with the begin- 
ning of the human race. Of this number, Gayomart, and doubt- 
lessly he alone, merits serious consideration as the prototype of 
the Gnostic Anthropos. At first glance it might appear as though 
the consideration of the hypothesis of Bousset and Reitzenstein, 
involved no more than a plain recital of the nature and character of 
Gayomart as drawn from the Iranian sources. But such is not 
the case. In Gayomart we happen to have an enigma. That 
enigma can be solved only by constant reference to the bulk of 
the Iranian and Indo-Aryan tradition. 

The most extensive account of Gayomart is toad in the 
Pahlavi Bundahishn, a work that is based on a lost Avestan text 
and has come down to us in a longer and shorter recension.?® At 
the beginning, we are told, there existed two spirits, a spirit of 
good and a spirit of evil, a spirit of light and a spirit of darkness. 
The former, Ahura Mazda, being omniscient, was aware of the — 
latter’s existence, and of a conflict destined to take place between 
them in the realm of air which separated their individual spheres. 
In consequence of his foreknowledge, Ahura Mazda produced in 
his proper territory the host of his creatures, the beings necessary 
to the accomplishment of his end, namely the victory over Ahriman, 
the evil spirt. These creatures belong to the realm of spirit 
exclusively. Among them is “the righteous man,’ probably 


27 Most recently Schaeder, in Reitzenstein u. Schaeder, Studien, section II, 
Iranische Lehren. Also, A. Christensen, Le Premier Homme et le Premier Roi 
dans lV Histoire Legendaire des Iraniens, in Archives d’Etudes Orientales, No. 
14 (1918), and H. Guentert, Der arische Weltkénig wu. Heiland (1923). Cf. A. J. 
Carnoy, Iran’s Primeval Heroes and the Myth of the First Man, Indo-Iranian 
Studies in honor of Shams ul ullema Dastur, ete. (1925), p. 203ff. 

28 Bundahishn, translated by West, in Sacred Books of the East, vol. XI. 
and the Great Bundahishn, not accessible in translation in its entirety. 
Relevant passages are quoted by Christensen and by Schaeder. 

86 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


the heavenly Fravashi, or spiritual prototype of Gayomart.?9 

At the end of the first period of existence, the first of four 
aeons of 3000 years each, Ahriman rises from his sphere of dark- 
ness, bent on the conquest of the territory of light. His first 
effort proves a failure, and for its outcome two reasons are given, 
first, Ahura Mazda’s utterance of the Ahunavar formula, and his 
revelation (to the enemy) of the lasting possession of his creatures, 
secondly, Ahriman’s fear of ‘‘the righteous man.”’ 

As the result of his initial effort, the evil spirit remains impotent 
for a space of three thousand years, a period which Ahura Mazda 
utilizes to fashion in the realm of air a material creation embracing 
the earth and many of its diverse forms of life. Among the latter 
are the primeval (sole-created) ox and Gayomart, “‘mortal”’ or 
“human life.’ 

Material creation effected, the second period of the conflict, 
marked by the intermingling of the “wills” of Ahura Mazda and 
Ahriman, as well as of their creations is at hand. It begins with 
the resuscitation of the evil spirit and his attack upon the vegeta- 
tion, the ox, Gayomart and the heavenly fire in the order men- 
tioned. The hostilities take various forms. Noxious creatures 
are introduced into the world. Impurities, sickness, disease and 
darkness corrupt its ethical and physical perfection. Desire 
need, pain, hunger, appetite and sleep overcome the ox and 
Gayomart. When the former has passed away under the 
effects of the trial and the other creatures have been rendered 
useless (to the ends of the good spirit) Gayomart bears the brunt 
of the attack. Asto-vidad, the demon of death, together with a 
thousand of his kind are let forth against the prototype of human- 
ity. Gayomart remains faithful, ‘‘his eyes looking toward the 
great one.”’?9 Pursuant to divine command, his life and reign 
are continued for thirty years, but at last he too passes away, 
even as the primeval ox before him. ?! 


29 A spiritual creation precedes the formation of the material world. 
Bund., 1,8. Bund., 3, 1 presupposes that Gayomart as he first existed was a 
part of that creation. Cf. the note of West to Bund., 3, 1. . 

30 Bund., 3, 14-17. For the quotation, ibid., 24,1. Cf. Yasht 13, 87. 

31 Bund., 3, 22-3. 

87 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


From Gayomart there issued at the moment of his death his 
seed, two thirds of which were received by the sun to be purified, 
the other by Spendarmad, the earth. After a period of forty 
years the earth produced from it Mashya and Mashyoi, the first 
human couple. The two sprang forth from the earth in the shape 
of a Rivas plant. Finally, however, they changed from the shape 
of a plant to the shape of man and the soul entered into their 
bodies. 3? 

Of Gayomart we hear but once more. In a later chapter of 
the Bundahishn it is said that at the final resurrection “first the 
bones of Gayomart are roused up, then those of the rest of man- 
kind.’”’?3 Of the light accompanying the sun at this juncture, 
‘fone half will be for Gayomart, and one half will give enlighten- 
ment among the rest of men.’’?4 Even as he was at the begin- 
ning, such also is Gayomart at the end of the world, the first and 
foremost of his race. 

To this account as preserved in the Bundahishn the longer 
recension of the work, the Great Bundahisn, has little to add. It 
tells us that Gayomart was created of two elements. His body 
was fashioned of earth, while his sperma or soul was of the nature 
of heavenly fire.25 Because of the heavenly fire within him, 
Gayomart shone like the sun, a conception reéchoed in the Pahlavi 
writings of Zad Sparam.?® Mortality was not from the begin- 
ning inherent in his nature. It was due to his final conquest by 
Astovidhotu.?7 That conquest was deferred for thirty years 
because the evil stellar powers had first to drive from their ascend- 
ency the divinely created stars.?8 Here as in the selections of 
the Zad Sparam and the Menuk-i-Khrat, finally, we are told that 
the death of Gayomart had cosmogonal as well as anthropogonal 

82 Ibid., 15, 1-5. 

33 Ibid., 30, 7. 

34 Thid., 30, 9. 

35 Great Bund., III, A. Cf. Schaeder, Studien, p. 223. Gr. Bund., IV, A 
Cf. Schaeder, p. 226. 

36 Gr. Bund., I, A. Cf. Schaeder, p. 215. Gr. Bund., IV, A. Cf. Schaeder, 
p. 225. Zad Sparam, II, 8 (SBE, vol. XI). 

37 Gr. Bund., IV, A. Cf. Schaeder, p. 227-9. 

38 Tbid., III, A. Cf. Schaeder, pp. 221-3. 

88 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


significance, since eight kinds of metals arose from the members of 
his dead body. ?9 

One additional element of the Bundahishn tradition has yet 
to be mentioned. Its difficulty requires for it special considera- 
tion. At one point in the Bundahishn proper we are told that: 


before (Ahriman’s) coming to Gayomart, Ahura Mazda brought 
forth a sweat upon Gayomart, so long as one requires to recite a 
prayer of one stanza. Moreover, Ahura Mazda formed that 
sweat into the youthful body of a man of fifteen years, radiant 
and tall. When Gayomart issued from the sweat, he saw the 
world dark as night and the earth as though not a needle’s point 
remained free from noxious creatures. *° 


This obscure incident is reported in virtually the same words by 
the writers of the Great Bundahishn and the Zad Sparam.*! It 
appears in a somewhat different form in the Dinkard where we 
find it introduced as an excerpt from the Varshtmansar Nask.*? 
There are two important points of variance in the Dinkard nar- 
rative. The episode is relegated from the beginning to the end of 
the thirty years spent by Gayomart in conflict with the demons. 
The “‘sweat,’’ moreover, is created by the demons, not by Ahura 
Mazda, and appears on the prototype to his discomfort. The 
enigmatic ‘‘youthful man of fifteen years’? escapes mention 
entirely. 

The episode which this double tradition presents has been the 
occasion for much speculation, particularly in connection with 
the hypothesis of the Iranian origin of the Anthropos.4? Un- 
emended the tale is intelligible only in the form found in the 
Dinkard. Here it is clearly intended to record a portion of the 
story of Gayomart’s death. If the word ‘‘sweat”’ be euphemistic- 
ally used, the tale will be but a variant of the Bundahishn account 
of the prototype’s demise.4* While this represents a possible 

39 Ibid., IV, A. Cf. Schaeder, pp. 225-6. Zad Sparam, X, 2. Menuk-- 
Khrat, 27, 18. 

40 Bund., 3, 19-20. 

41 Gr. Bund., I1, A-B, ef. Schaeder, pp. 219-221. Zad Sparam, II, 8-10. 

42 Dinkard, IX, 32, 9-10, cf. Christensen, p. 14. 

43 Particularly Bousset, HP, pp. 203-5; Christensen, pp. 35-9. 

44 So Professor A. V. W. Jackson is inclined to interpret. 

89 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


form of analysis, there are good reasons for rejecting it as the 
correct solution of the problem, and: for considering the Dinkard 
tradition a secondary development.*° Best of them all is probably 
the interpretation of the Bundahishn passage recently given by 
Schaeder. It takes its clue from the context in which the incident 
stands. Just prior to the words quoted above from the Iranian 
Genesis, we are told that before,the coming of the evil spirit to the 
primeval ox, Ahura Mazda administered to the animal a strong 
narcotic. The treatment was intended to ameliorate the effects 
of the demon’s first attack. The codrdination of ox and man 
plainly exhibited in the book as a whole, requires that a similar 
kindness be shown to the prototype of humanity. Our Bunda- 
hishn passage, therefore, is intended to convey the idea that 
Gayomart was rendered temporarily insensible and thus spared 
the shock attendant upon the inroad of the evil spirits. This 
sense becomes apparent in the passage if we replace the word 
““sweat”’ by “‘sleep,”’ a substitution that is possible without alter- 
ing the text, since the Pahlavi characters of the word ‘‘sleep”’ 
might also be read “‘sweat.’”’ The young man mentioned in the 
second sentence of the account is none other than the genius of 
sleep, familiar to the Parsee from other sources. The sentence is 
to be construed as parenthetical and serves to record the creation 
of the genius and the fact that his existence is due to the bounteous 
kindness of Ahura Mazda toward humanity.*® By this inter- 
pretation, we add to our knowledge of Gayomart this detail, 
namely that at the coming of the demons the prototype of human- 
ity became temporarily insensate and was overwhelmed by 
sleep. | 

Other Pahlavi texts add but little to the Bundahishn tradi- 
tion. We are told in the Dinkard that Gayomart was the first 
to utter sublime words and that from him alone come all good 


45 It violates the parallelism between this incident of the life of Gayomart 
and another similar occurrence in the life of the primordial ox previously 
recounted in the source (Bund., 3, 18). Moreover, it transposes the coming of 
darkness, which should be coincident with the first approach of the demons, 
to an inappropriate place at the end of Gayomart’s earthly life. 

46 Studien, p. 217, note 1. 

90 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


thoughts, good words and acts of men.*” Thus he occupies the 
first place in the number of those who are ‘‘ prophets, apostles and 
believers, who accept the (true) religion in its entirety.”48 The 
Dadistan-i-Dinik lists him among those who have contributed to 
the final renovation of the universe,*® and frequently speaks of 
Gayomart, Zarathushtra and paoshyant as the beginning, middle 
and end of creation. °° 

The Pahlavi tradition upon which we have drawn for our 
information concerning Gayomart is taken from sources the 
codification of which does not antedate the Mohammedan era. 
It might appear as though it were quite out of question to consider 
the Iranian figure a possible prototype of the Hellenistic Anthropos. 
Such is not the case, in spite of the efforts of Scheftelowitz to show 
that Gayomart is dependent upon the Jewish Adam.*! The 
tradition embodied in the Pahlavi works is almost universally 
agreed to belong to a period far more ancient than that which 
saw its final composition. The Bundahishn and the Great Bunda- 
hishn particularly are considered epitomized forms of the Damdat 
Nask, one of the twenty-one books of the original Avesta as known 
in Sasanian times. What is true of these books as a whole is 
true also of their description of Gayomart, especially since, as we 
have seen, the prototype of humanity was mentioned in the 
Varshtmansar Nask,®? and in at least two other books of the 
later Avesta. °4 

But even the third Christian century cannot be the terminus 
a quo in the existence of Gayomart. His simultaneous appearance 
in so many portions of the Sasanian Avesta demands that he be 
regarded as an element of the tradition current in Parthian times. 


47 Dink., III, 148, 2 

48 Thid., V, 1, 8. 

49 Dadistan-i-Dinik, 36, 2. 

50 Tbid., 2,9; 4,6; cf. 28, 7. 

51 Entstehung, pp. 60-1. Scheftelowitz is refuted by Schaeder, pp. 241-2. 

52 A. V. W. Jackson, art. ‘‘Avesta” in ERE; Darmsteter, SBE., vol. IV, 
p. xxxv; West, ibid., vol. XI, p. xxiv. 

53 Cf. above, p. 89 and Dink., IX, 32, 9-10. 

54 Chitradat Nask, quoted in Dink., VIII, 13, 1-4; Bak Nask, quoted in 
Dink., TX, 53, 18. 

91 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


This contention is borne out by the mention of his name (if nothing 
more) in the Yashts of the ‘‘Younger Avesta.’’°° Indeed it is 
possible to proceed one step further and maintain that Gayomart 
antedates even the Parthian period. ‘Though there is no incon- 
trovertible direct evidence in support of this view, a number of 
factors point in that direction. 

In the first place, certain allusions in the Gathas, the oldest 
elements of Zarathushtrian tradition demand consideration. The 
famous third Gatha speaks of a Man (maretan) who was attacked 
by the demons in connection with the beginning of the struggle 
between the two hostile spirits.°® Other Gathas mention by 
name Geush-urvan the soul of the ox who is in Pahlavi tradition 
the animal counterpart of Gayomart.®’ The passages in question 
appear to imply the existence of Gaya-Maretan, the prototypic 
man, at a very early time. 

The identical conclusion seems to follow, in the second place, 
from the study of the relation between Gayomart and other 
figures of ancient Eastern mythology. In his major capacities, 
so the inquiries of Guentert have shown, Gayomart bears a 
remarkable affinity to a number of figures appearing in the rem- 
nants of Iranian, Vedic and Aryan tradition. He is but one par- 
ticular manifestation of a type the character of which is deter- 
mined by three basic concepts, first, that the world and its human 
beings arose from the sacrifice and death of a primordial being of 
human form, second, that man is the offspring of a single bisexual 
prototype, third, that the first mortal is also the first and foremost 
in the kingdom of the dead. Of these three ideas, the first two 
appear in juxtaposition in Iranian, Indic and Nordic lore, while 
the last is an admixture common to Iranian and Indic mythology. °® 
The Indo-Iranian antiquity of the parent stock being scarcely 

55 Yasht, 13, 86-7, 145 et al., cf. Christensen, pp. 12-3. 

56 Schaeder considers Gatha 3,6 (i.e., Yasna, 30, 6), a reference to Gayo- 
mart. Studien, p.213. So too Prof. Jackson, in his translation of the passage, 
art. Avesta, in Library of the World’s Best Literature, vol. 3 (1897), p. 1089. 

57 Yasna, 28, 1; 29, 1-11. Cf. Christensen, pp. 11-12. In the Iranian 
cosmogony that reached the West in connection with Mithra worship, only 
the ox appears. 

88 Der arische Weltkénig u. Heiland, pp. 315-94, particularly, pp. 392-3. 

92 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


open to question, Gayomart may well be a very old figure, at 
least to the extent to which he corresponds to type. 

The character of Gayomart, however, shows not only typical 
but also individual traits. These presuppose a definite theological 
horizon and thus afford a third indication of the time of his origin 
in that form which the Pahlavi works indicate. 

Gayomart is not merely the first man, he is the prototype of 
humanity, an element of the spiritual creation of Ahura Mazda. 
His death is allotted its appropriate place in the great struggle 
between Ahriman and Ormuzd. It results not because of a 
will to sacrifice himself, or because of the plan of God, but as a 
consequence of Gayomart’s having been overcome by the evil 
powers. The ulterior prominence attaching to this prototype is 
determined not by his place in the succession of mortal beings, 
but by his essential righteousness and the contribution which he 
as the first believer made to the progress of the world. Even his 
name ‘‘mortal life’? shows that he has been raised from the world 
of mythological beings into that of abstractions. 

Of these individual traits, the abstract name and the place 
which Gayomart holds in the preéxistent spiritual creation, pre- 
suppose the Zarathushtrian sublimation of current mythological 
persons, a sublimation most clearly illustrated by the Amesha 
Spentas, and the equally Zarathushtrian conception of divine 
spirituality.°9 The other characteristics imply the division of 
the conflict between Ahriman and Ahura Mazda into periods, its 
statement in the form of a sacred history embracing the whole of 
existence, and the insistence upon adherence to Zarathushtrian 
principles as the essence of righteousness. 

The first of these two groups of traits is the older and presup- 
poses the purely Zarathushtrian theology. The second embraces 
principles that are more scholastic in nature and are by some 
scholars assigned to the period following the days of the great 
prophet himself. Inherently their character furnishes no more 
than a terminus a quo. They show that the way was prepared 
for the coming of our Pahlavi Gayomart in pre-Parthian, some 


59 Dhalla, Zoroastrian Theology (1914), pp. 26-45. 
93 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


times called Mazdean or Magian, times.°° Two further observa- 
tions, however, make it imperative that the development of his 
person should actually have taken place at that juncture. The 
first is the fact that for the religion of Persia the Parthian era 
represents a period of decay rather than of development, and 
thus scarcely favorable to the creation of a figure of such im- 
portance as Gayomart.®! The second is that Yima, who since 
he corresponds to the Vedic Yama, is the logical and probably 
original representative of the Indo-Iranian type from which the 
figure of Gayomart has been developed, has been relegated to 
comparative obscurity in our later Avestan and Pahlavi tradition, 
a thing that would hardly have happened had Gayomart been a 
creation of only the Parthian days. ®? 

We therefore conclude that because of the allusions in the 
Gathas, because of the antiquity of the type which he represents, 
because the way had been prepared for the development of his 
individual traits in pre-Parthian days and because that develop- 
ment is scarcely intelligible as a product of the Parthian period, 
that therefore Gayomart in his Pahlavi form is at least a creation 
of pre-Parthian days and perhaps of the days of Zarathushtra 
himself. That being the case, he is certainly sufficiently ancient 
to merit consideration as the ultimate origin of the Anthropos, 
or for that matter, if need be, of the Jewish Bar Nasha. 


3. The analysis of the other hypotheses concerning the origin 
of the Anthropos, has shown that to make any one trait of the 
figure the exclusive basis for the establishment of his origin and 
identity, is liable to lead to erroneous results. We came to the 
conclusion that it is rather the conjunction of the characteristics 
of man, primordial champion and father of humanity, which 
stamps him as an individual distinct from all those figures to which 


60 The division into periods was familiar already to Theopompus (ce. 300 
BC) according to Plutarch, de Is. et Osiris, 47. By ‘“Magian or Mazdean’”’ 
we mean that phase of Iranian religious development which follows the days 
of the great prophet Zarathushtra and extends to the beginning of the Parthian 
period. 

6! Dhalla, p. 188. 

62Qn Yima cf. Guentert, pp. 370-8. 

94 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


singly and in combination he has been compared. On the basis 
of this conjunction, then, the relation of Anthropos and Gayomart 
must be tested. The test involves the answer to two questions. 
First, are the points of similarity sufficiently specific to warrant 
the basic identity. of the figures? Second, are the points of dif- 
ference intelligible as having been suggested by some cognate 
trait of the proposed prototype, or as the changes resultant 
from the transfer of the prototype into alien spheres of 
thought? 

Perhaps the closest approach in point of contact between the 
Anthropos and Gayomart is to be found in the Manichean cos- 
mogony. Here the Primal Man appears in a great primordial 
conflict waged between two eternally contrary powers. The 
names applied to these opposing forces vary in the Manichean 
tradition in proportion as it comes from Eastern or Western 
sources, but it is certainly suggestive to find that in the East the 
name Ormuzd (Ahura Mazda) was attached to the Primal Man, 
Ahrman (Ahriman) to the Power of Evil and Zrvan to the Supreme 
God.°* If names are to be an indication of the sphere from which 
the Anthropos in his original form was taken, we might expect 
to find the Eastern Manichees speaking of the Primal Man as 
Gayomart. To our knowledge this designation does not appear, 
and that for the very good reason that Mani was a Zervanist. 
The Anthropos was identified by him with Ormuzd and under 
the latter’s name he appears in these circles. 

Apart from the names, the nature of the conflict in which the 
Primal Man finds himself is suggestive of the Iranian provenience 
of the Anthropos. In both Eastern and Western Manichean 
tradition it is Light and Darkness that clash, and the King of 
Darkness who, rapt by the sheen of the Light, is determined to 
invade the upper sphere.®* The situation clearly recalls the 
opening chapters of the Bundahishn. The nature and position 


63 Qn Ormuzd and Zrvan, cf. above, p. 27. On Ahrman, ef. Schaeder, p. 
250 and note 4. 

64 For instance Bar Khoni, in Cumont, Recherches I, pp. 8-11, and the 
Chastuanift I.B. in a new edition by Bang, Museon, Vol. XX XVI., (1923) 
p. 144, quoted by Schaeder p. 250, but inaccessible to me. 

95 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


of the contrary worlds as well as the motivation of the evil spirit’s 
action are the same in both cases. ®°. 

In this struggle the Primal Man of Manicheism occupies a 
role in many respects approximating that of Gayomart in Zoro- 
astrianism. In the first place it is he, a divinely created human 
being, who occupies the center of the stage and conditions the 
future course and final termination of the struggle, just as in Iran 
it is Gayomart about whom the primordial conflict rages most 
violently and in whose fate the rest of humanity is implicated. 
Like the Iranian prototype, moreover, the Primal Man becomes 
temporarily insensate, owing to the influence of the evil spirit, ®® 
and ultimately succumbs before the advances of the powers of 
darkness. In both cases, finally, the existence of the primordial 
champions and their tragic fate form the precondition and occa- 
sion of the birth of the human race. 

Unquestionably the similarity between these elements of 
Manichean and Iranian tradition are suggestive of the inter- 
relation of the figures in question. Two things, however, have 
to be considered before this interrelation may become a working 
hypothesis. In the first place evidence must be presented to 
show that the role of primordial champion is an integral part of 
the Anthropos tradition. The Manichean texts give us that 
tradition in its latest and most highly developed form. We must 
therefore have some guarantee that the picture which they paint 
has not been retouched on the basis of Iranian ideas. Secondly, 
a satisfactory explanation must be given for the existence, in the 
description of the primordial Anthropos, of traits utterly unrelated 
to the Iranian Gayomart. 

The consideration of the first of these matters, to which we 
now turn, involves a slight digression. 

To anyone judging superficially it might appear as though it 
were hopeless to endeavor to find a common ground between the 
Manichean Primal Man as champion and the Anthropos of the 
earlier western Gnostics. While it is true that the heresiologists, 
upon whom we are largely dependent for our information concerning 

66 So Cumont, op. cit., p. 13. 

66 Cf. above, p. 19. 

96 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


the theology of these circles, frequently obscure the Anthropos in 
their haste to be about the business of polemics, there are found 
in their writings, none the less, random statements which give 
a clue to the real nature of the figure in its westerly and earlier 
aspects. These statements show that the Anthropos of the second 
century was not very far removed from the Manichean Primal Man. 

The first passage to be noted in this connection is culled from 
the Poimandres. There it is said that: 


Having learned to know the being (of the Administrators) 
and having received a share of their nature, he (the Anthropos) 
willed to break through the bounding circle of their orbits and to 
subdue the power of the one who was set over the region of fire. 


The statement embodies the note of conflict current in the Mani- 
chean cosmogony, a note apparently incongruous in the Poi- 
mandres, and one which has given trouble to the editors of the 
tract. ®§ 

The identical note was sounded also in the early Gnostic 
theologies of Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia. Among the 
Christian Naasenes, the Barbelognostics and the Manicheans, a 
peculiar form of the name Adam wasinuse. That form is Adamas, 
literally interpreted, ‘the unconquerable.” It is clearly limited 
in its application to the Anthropos and is distinguished in the 
circles in question from the term Adam, a term here applied 
exclusively to the material protoplast.©? Moreover, it was 
evidently formulated under the influence of the Greek and not 
the Aramaic idiom.’° That the particular significance given the 


87 Poimandres, c. 13. 

68 Scott, Hermetica I, found the passage so difficult that he chose to prefer 
an easier reading for “subdue,” namely “regard,” and to transpose the pas- 
sage bodily to another place. Admittedly the passage is out of harmony 
with the Poimandres cosmogony, but that is because it has come with the 
Anthropos from a non-Hellenic source. 

69 Evident wherever comparison is possible. For evidence concerning the 
Naasene usage compare Hipp. V, 6, 5 (Adamas) with ibid., V, 7, 6 (Adam). 
The same distinction is made by the Manicheans. Cf. Bar Khoni, Cumont 
I, p. 22 (Adamas) with ibid., p. 43 (Adam). 

70 The name Adamas is found in both Greek and Syriac texts. Its origin, 
as Brockelman (Lexicon Syriacum, sub voce) shows, is to be found in the 

97 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


name Adam by this Hellenization was evident to the Gnostic 
users, appears in part from the restriction of its usage, and in part 
from the explicit statement of Irenaeus that the Barbelognostics 
called the Anthropos ‘“‘Adamas” because ‘‘neither he nor those 
with him were ever conquered.’”’’! Even Mani, where he speaks 
of Adamas Light, a double of the Primal Man, refers to him as a 
“‘heroam belligerum.”’ 7? _, 

Now the name Adamas, which we are using to substantiate 
the antiquity of the heroic role of the Anthropos, might seem to 
point to the West rather than the Iranian East as the place where 
this heroic capacity was developed. How do we know that a 
popular etymology of the name Adam, developed on the shores of 
the Mediterranean by the use of the Greek idiom, was not the 
very source whence Mani received the inspiration for his primordial 
champion? The question is readily disposed of. In the first 
place, the Poimandres indicates that the Anthropos was regarded 
as a bellicose figure even where the name Adamas was not employed 
and that as early as the first appearance of the Hellenized form. 
Secondly, in the Chaldean Tale, where as we recall, the ‘‘Great 
Man” has first to be ‘‘overpowered” before the present world 
order can be inaugurated, we have evidence that the heroic guise 
clung to the Anthropos prior to the use of the designation 
Adamas.’? Now there is scarcely a doubt that the Chaldean 
Tale is really of Mesopotamian provenience. This can be asserted 
because there is no reason why the author of the Naasene Docu- 
ment should have falsified the origin of his source, and because the 
Mesopotamian Anthropos theology of a later period (Manichean 
and Mandean) echoes the note sounded in the Chaldean Tale. 


Greek substantive ddduas, derived from the verb daudw. The Syriac form 
Adamus cannot be the primary for in that case the ending -us would have 
diminutive force and would thus make the name inapplicable to a ‘Great 
Man.” 

71 Tren. I, 29, 3. 

72 According to Augustine, contra Faustum, xv, 6 and Bar Khoni, Cumont 
Tp.39; 

73 xexparnuevos, Hipp. V, 7, 7. In Hippolytus’ redaction of the Chaldean 
Tale the name Adamas occurs, but it cannot belong to the original account. 
Cf. our reconstruction, above, p. 50. : 

98 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


It follows, then, that whatever the origin of the name Adamas, the 
heroic Anthropos himself goes back, not only in time, but in place 
as well, to a sphere where Greek influence could not have acted 
formatively upon the delineation of his person and role. 

To suppose that a heroic capacity is thus inherent in the nature 
of the Anthropos (since it is a constant factor in the tradition), 
does not necessarily imply the Iranian origin of the figure either 
in part or whole. We are, thus, one step yet removed from bring- 
ing the results of the previous argument to bear upon the question 
concerning the relation of Gayomart and Anthropos. By consider- 
ing the evidence for the latter’s heroic role from still another angle 
we shall, however, find ourselves brought back to that particular 
question. 

The analysis of the Manichean sources has showed that while 
the majority regarded the Primal Man as essentially a defeated 
champion, there was an undercurrent of opinion to the effect 
that he had really been victorious in his conflict with the King of 
Darkness. The evidence just presented to prove that the earlier 
Gnostics of the littoral Near East were acquainted with the heroic 
Anthropos reflects the same two points of view. Where he is 
known as Adamas, the Anthropos is certainly the victorious 
“unconquerable”’ champion. Even the Poimandres, when it 
speaks of the Anthropos’ ‘will to subdue” seems to echo this 
strain. Yet the burden of the Hermetic tale is closer to the other 
conception. The last thing it records concerning the heavenly 
Man is the union between him and his beloved Physis. That he 
disappears from the scene completely after this event indicates 
that he has lost his divine identity. Submitting to passion he has 
become its victim and paid the penalty that must be demanded of 
a divine being for such an act. Whatever the benefits are that 
accrue to man by reason of this primordial incident, it certainly 
brings the story of the Anthropos to a tragic close. What is true 
of the Poimandres is true of the Chaldean Tale as well, for here 
the Great Man is “‘overcome”’ in the course of events leading to 
man’s creation. 

Throughout our sources we thus find a twofold interpretation 
of the heroic Anthropos. He is both victorious and defeated 

99 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


champion. What, then, may be the relative antiquity of the 
two types and the origin of the later of the two? 

Anyone familiar with the growth and development of mytho- 
logical and legendary tradition will not find it difficult to answer 
the first of these questions. It is much more likely that the weaker, 
defeated champion should become a victorious hero in the course 
of time than that the opposite should be the case. Human nature 
in inherently optimistic and the traditions handed down by human- 
ity have a tendency to be changed into conformity with that 
optimism. 

The second question, relative to the origin of the later (vic- 
torious) type is not so readily disposed of. We have two criteria 
by which to formulate an opinion, first, the fact that the Anthropos 
and Manda d’Haye were are one time identified, second, the 
characteristics of the victorious Anthropos. 

Among the scholars who have occupied themselves with the 
interpretation of the Mandean texts, those venturing an opinion 
upon the origin of Manda d’Haye have, with the exception of 
Reitzenstein, been unanimous in declaring that he represents a 
Gnostic form of the conqueror Marduk.’* The correspondence 
between Marduk and Manda d’Haye in both outline and detail 
is so striking as to admit of almost no other explanation.’° If, 
then, the heroic Anthropos has been considered cognate to Manda 
d’Haye, it may not be amiss to ascribe the existence of the vic- 
torious type of heroic Anthropos to the influence exerted upon the 
figure by the old Babylonian deity. The mere fact that both are 
primordial champions serves to motivate the rapprochement 
between them. 

Confirmation of this contention may be gained from the analysis 
of the more important characteristics of the victorious Anthropos, 
as indicated in the Manichean sources. 


74 Brandt, MR, pp. 182-4, 213-16; Kessler, art. Mandder, PRE (3rd ed.), 
vol. XII, p. 182, 19-22; Bousset, HP, pp. 242-51; Pallis, Mandaeiske Studier, 
(1919), pp. 23-32. 

75 Particularly in RG, bks. 3 and 5,.1. In the latter Hibil has second- 
arily taken the place of Manda d’Haye Brandt, MR, pp. 213-6; Kessler, 
loc. cit. 

100 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


The sources upon which we are dependent in reconstructing 
the Manichean theology are agreed that in the primordial struggle 
the Primal Man loses a portion of his person or of the arms or 
powers of his panoply. They disagree, as we have seen, concern- 
ing the circumstances attending the loss. Some regard it as the 
tragic result of the Anthropos’ defeat. The rest view it as a 
clever and premeditated stratagem, the idea being that absorption 
of the foreign material forces the powers of evil into submission. 7 ® 
This idea that the loss represents a stratagem may well have been 
suggested by the story of Marduk’s conquest of Tiamat, for 
Marduk there sends the tempest, one of his helpers, into the 
inward parts of the monster and by this means overwhelms 
her. ‘7 

Furthermore, the conception that the five elements connected 
with the Primal Man form his armor, recalls the fact that Marduk 
too was armed in his descent to the lower world.’7® Nahash- 
shebet, finally, the personification of the weapon carried by the 
Primal Man in other accounts, may well be the serpentine 
lightning, which in pictorial representations the dragon fighters 
of Babylonia hold in their hand. “? 

If our analysis of the heroic, and particularly of the victorious 
Anthropos is valid, it will serve not only to clear the way for the 
interrelation of Anthropos and Gayomart, by showing that the 
role of primordial champion is a constant element in the tradition, 
but will give us in addition a positive basis upon which to establish 
that connection. 

Direct statements preserved in the sources, general considera- 
tions arising out of the study of Gnosticism as a whole and the 
impression created by the relative vitality evinced by our figure 
in the different streams of tradition, indicate that the home of the 
Anthropos is in the inner Orient, and that the geographical diffu- 
sion and inner development of the tradition progressed as he 


76 Cf. above, pp. 19-20. 

778. Langdon, The Babylonian Epic of Creation (1923), pp. 133 and 141. 

78 Tbid., p. 131. 

79 A. Jeremias, Handbuch der altorient, Geisteskultur (1913), pp. 26-7 and 
plates 15 and 17. 
¢ 101 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


traveled from East to West.°° If then we are to consider Baby- 
lonian thought as the means of his transformation into a victorious 
champion, the ultimate origin of the underlying and transformed 
figure should logically be found east of Mesopotamia, in Iran.®! 
The similarity between the Iranian Gayomart and the Anthropos 
as defeated champion, as we have already outlined it, cannot be 
either secondary or fortuitous. The stratification of the Anthropos 
tradition and the course of the Anthropos’ movement from 
Mesopotamia westward, demand that the two figures must be 
fundamentally identical. | 

Before the argument on this point becomes conclusive, one 
further step will need to be taken. An adequate basis, not in 
conflict with the hypothesis advanced, must be found to explain 
the evolution of those details in the description of the preéxistent 
and primordial Anthropos for which there is no immediate founda- 
tion in the person and role of Gayomart. 

Between the two figures whom it is proposed to connect, 
there are a number of distinct differences. In the first place, 
Gayomart is but the prototype of humanity.?? He struggles 
against the demons as one who is an element of Ahura Mazda’s 
material creation. The Anthropos, on the other hand, is a com- 
pletely transcendent person, a member of the divine pleroma. 
Among the Manicheans he was regarded as the third of a divine 
Trinity comprising Father, Mother and Son. Other Gnostics 
placed him in the divine Ogdoad of emanations or made of him 
the supreme deity. 

Now of course it is true that Gayomart was a member not only 


80 Cf. above, pp. 83-4. 

81 That the change actually took place in Mesopotamia is demanded by — 
the intimate knowledge of Marduk revealed in the characterization of the 
Anthropos. 

82 Guentert (p. 316) is probably correct in assuming that the Indo-Arian 
prototype of Gayomart was considered a divine being, and Scheftelowitz is 
probably also right in his contention that the Pahlavi Gayomart is not a God 
(Entstehung, p. 59). But the conclusions drawn from his observation by 
Scheftelowitz are incorrect. The Pahlavi Gayomart is certainly more than 
a normal human being, and because of this fact he could well become a God 
in Gnostic circles. 

102 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


of the material creation of Ahura Mazda, but of the spiritual 
and preéxistent creation as well. If that fact was known to the 
individuals from whom the Gnostics derived their information, 
it would serve to explain why they classed him among the divine 
beings. Yet it would not explain the prominence and preéminence 
accorded him in his divine form. ‘This, together with the trans- 
formation as a whole, can be accounted for satisfactorily if we 
interpose between Gayomart and the Anthropos the former’s 
identification with Marduk. Once the two champions had been 
identified with one another, a divine Anthropos could well result. 
Indeed the tendency to regard the Anthropos as one of the highest, 
if not the highest of the pleromatic powers cannot be disassociated 
from the fact that Marduk, as the son of Ea is actually considered 
the manifestation of the third power in the Babylonian Trinity, *3 
and that by reason of his victory over Tiamat he is sometimes 
considered the foremost of the Gods, having the rank of Anu.84 
Minor fluctuations in the position of the divine Anthropos, such 
as those characterizing the diverse Valentinian schools, are of 
course due to the confluence of a number of distinct traditions, of 
which the Anthropos theology was but one. Mani’s identifica- 
tion of Primal Man and Ormuzd has roots that extend into Zervan- 
istic doctrines as well as into the Anthropos tradition of earlier 
times. 

In his role as divine being the Anthropos sometimes aspires to 
metaphysical significance, particularly in the capacities of Nous, 
Logos and All. To some these capacities constitute evidence for 
the contention that the Anthropos is Western and speculative in 
origin. ‘The fallacy of this contention we have already had occa- 
sion to discuss. Reitzenstein, on the other hand, has latterly 
endeavored to show that the noodtic characteristics of the Hellen- 
istic Anthropos are the correct expression of the nature of Gayo- 


83 HAOG, p. 23. Such trinities are, however, common in Oriental thought 
and might have originated almost anywhere. Cf. Bousset, HP, pp. 333-8, 
where the effort is made to connect the trinity embracing the Primal Man with 
Dinkard, III, 82, Gayomart being there the son of Ahura Mazda and Spend- 
armad. 

84 HAOG, p. 273. 

103 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


mart as a member of the preéxistent spiritual world and as the 
representative and embodiment of. qualities inherent in Ahura 
Mazda. °° 

While we are not yet ready to agree with Reitzenstein that the 
channel through which these impressions were transmitted 
westward was the knowledge zn extenso of Avestan books like the 
Damdat Nask (which he finds summarized in the Poimandres), 
the view given by the German scholar represents one distinctly 
possible explanation of the phenomena under discussion. Its 
only weakness is that the Anthropos Theology in other respects 
seems to reflect the impression made by the vicissitudes and the 
position of Gayomart, rather than by his essential qualities. 

Considering this fact and the extremities to which syncretism 
led in the littoral Orient, where the Anthropos became meta- 
physical, it seems feasible to suggest a less recondite explanation 
of the transformation which he suffered. In his Mesopotamian 
phase, the Anthropos was regarded as cosmogonal agent and occu- 
pied either first or third places in the heavenly hierarchy. Such 
a form of Anthropos theology transmitted to Syria and brought 
violently into contact with metaphysics would naturally lead to 
the codrdination of Anthropos and any metaphysical postulate 
correspondingly placed in the scheme of ultimates. The very 
range of speculative thought represented by the concepts Nous, 
Logos and All attached to the Anthropos, would seem to indicate 
that their application to him rests not upon the correct apprecia- 
tion of his essential being, but rather upon the desire to syncretize. 

Under these conditions it is extremely difficult to ascertain 
whether and to what extent the macrocosmic significance attach- 
ing to Gayomart played a part in determining the nature of 
individual forms of the Anthropos’ metaphysical appearance in 
the West. Suffice it then to say, that the origin of the speculative 
interpretation of the Anthropos is as readily intelligible in con- 
nection with any hypothesis maintaining his Oriental origin, as 
the fact that, once he had been introduced into the speculative 
sphere, it became customary to differentiate between entirely 
transcendent and transcendent-immanent phases of his being, 

85 Reitzenstein u. Schaeder, Studien, pp. 3-37. 

104 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


and thus to reduplicate the figure, using the Christian expression 
“Son of Man”’ as the designation of second manifestation. 

It is a further peculiarity of the Anthropos that in his pleromatic 
as well as his subjective existence, he is frequently characterized 
as bisexual.8® This trait he manifests only in sources that show 
contact with Greek speculation. It has, moreover, no direct and 
explicit parallel in the description of Gayomart. Hence, it has 
been pointed to as an argument for either the Jewish or the Greek 
speculative origin of an Anthropos, in proportion as attention 
has been focused either upon the bisexual Adam of the Mid- 
rashim 8’ the super-sexual “heavenly Man” of Philo®® or the 
corresponding cosmic Logos. ®? 

These conclusions are based upon the examination of only a 
part of the relevant evidence. In a number of sources where 
bisexuality plays no part in the description of the Anthropos, we 
find him supplied with a female paredros. She appears under a 
diversity of names, either as Ennoia, Ekklesia, Anana d’Nhura or 
Barbelo.°° Everyone will no doubt admit that his appearance 
in the company of a consort is the result of the division of the 
bisexual Anthropos into his component male and female elements, 
Since the sources that speak of the partner are relatively no older 
than those mentioning the hermaphrodite man, the existence of 
the consort might seem to shed no light on the origin of the trait 
of bisexuality. That is not the case. 

Two of the four names applied to the consort of the Anthropos 
identify her as one and the same person, the famous deity, Ishtar 
of Arbela. The first is the name Barbelo, the best etymology of 
which is, we believe, “in Arbela.’”’®! The second is Anana 
d’Nhura, the Mandean designation which approximates an 
epithet applied to Ishtar as queen of heaven in a hymn, namely, 

86 Cf. above, pp. 44, n. 36 and p. 55. 

87 Bereshith Rabba, 8,1; Wayyikra Rabba, 14,1; cf. Scheftelowitz, Parsismus 
und Judentum (1920), p, 217. 

88 Opif. Mundi, § 134; Leg. Alleg., II, §13; Leisegang, Der Heilige Geist 
(1919), pp. 78-80; Scott, Hermetica, II. p. 45. 

89 Leisegang, Gnosis, pp. 93-5; 117-8. 

909 Cf. above, pp. 41, 46, 61. 

91 A number of ermolorcn have been erreoaad Hilgenfeld, KAetzer- 

105 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


‘“‘fiery cloud.”°2, Now we have already seen that internal and 
external evidence connects the Anthropos at one stage of his 
development with Chaldea, and thav this stage antedates the 
period of his speculative metaphysical interpretation. It would 
seem that the period when he was identified with Marduk was the 
juncture that produced his collocation with Ishtar. In the first 
place, to assume that the paredros is a creation of the later epoch, 
when the Anthropos had already reached the Hellenized littoral 
of the Near East, is to make her (secondary) identification with 
Ishtar unintelligible. Ennoia and Ekklesia would be her proper 
names in this case, and neither suggests Ishtar as its Babylonian 
counterpart. Indeed the Christian influence visible in the name 
Ekklesia may well be thought to militate against the possibility 
of paganizing the figure. On the other hand, if Ishtar is the 
consort in her original form, the change to Ekklesia, the bride of 
the heavenly king, is at least feasible. But that means in turn 
that the consort reverts to the pre-Christian pre-Hellenistic period 
of the Anthropos tradition, a period represented only by the 
Chaldean Tale, in other words the period that saw the identifica- 
tion of Anthropos and Marduk. In the second place, as Zimmern 
has pointed out, the syzygy idea which plays such a part in deter- 
‘mining the nature of Gnostic theology, may well have its origin 
in the Babylonian practise of listing deities in pairs.9? If, as we 
have reason to believe, the Anthropos passed through Mesopo- 
tamia before he appeared in the West, that is both the place and 
the time for the addition of a consort and the formation of a 
Syzygy. 

It has already been said, that logically, the Anthropos bisex- 
uality should precede his appearance in company with a partner. 
If the partner be an addition accruing to him in his passage of 
Mesopotamia, his bisexuality should revert to his pre-Mesopo- 


geschichte, p. 233 (“‘in the four is God’’); Bousset, HP, p. 14 (corruption of 
Greek wap6évos). The one we should be inclined to accept, namely: “in 
Arbela,” is that of Gressmann, ZKG, vol. XL (1922), p. 187. 
9 HAOG, p. 257. The epithet as transcribed by Jeremias is Akukdtum. 
93 Zimmern, Babylonische Vorstufen der vorderasiatischen M ysterienreligion, 
ZDMG, vol. 76 (1922), p. 52. 
106 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


tamian prototype, Gayomart. This brings us face to face with 
the difficulty, that Gayomart is nowhere explicitly styled bisexual. 
Two facts have, however, to be noted, first, that as Guentert has 
shown, this trait is a current feature in the Indo-Iranian type of 
which Gayomart is a particular manifestation,94 second, that 
because of his prototypic character, Gayomart may be said to be 
not alien to ideas of bisexuality. This makes possible the asser- 
tion that the type which Gayomart represents, and the solitarity 
of his existence could suggest his being thought of as bisexual 
er being connected with a partner.2?®° That makes him a sufh- 
cient basis for the origin of the phenomena of the Anthropos 
tradition which are at present under consideration. 

Manicheans, as we have seen, associate the Primal Man with 
five elements. These they consider fundamental to his physical 
structure, or adjuncts to his person in the nature of sons, armor 
or cloaks. In the Iranian tradition, Gayomart, through his 
death and disintegration, contributes seven metals to the con- 
stitution of the cosmos. The parallel is not exact, both in the 
number of the elements and in their nature. Yet it is incorrect 
with Scheftelowitz to ignore the existence of even a partial simi- 
larity, and to use the relation of Anthropos and elements in sup- 
port of the hypothesis maintaining the non-Iranian origin of the 
figure. For this contention there is one excellent reason. Ele- 
ment speculation was, as Reitzenstein has shown, a widely diffused 
practice.?® Canons of four, five and seven elements are found 
over the whole of the ancient world, from China and India to 
Greece and Egypt. There are infinite possibilities for fluctuation 
in number and character, particularly in such a religion as Mani- 
cheism, which drew upon Buddhistic, Iranian, Greek and Christian 
as well as Gnostic sources from the beginning. A suggestion 
such as that contained in the Gayomart tradition is sufficient to 
connect the Anthropos with element speculation. Of course it 


94 Guentert, p. 392. 
%5 In the Pahlavi texts the Earth, Spendarmad, functions as the spouse of 
Gayomart. 
% Gedanken zur Entwickelung des Erléserglaubens, Historische Zeitschrift, 
vol. 126 (1922), III. Folge, vol. 30, pp. 10-14. 
107 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


must be remembered, too, that the five-fold number of the Anthro- 
pos’ elements is only the Manichean version of the tradition. In 
the Poimandres, it is seven powers with which the Anthropos is 
endowed. ‘Twice six are the aeons which according to Valentinus 
and his school, the Anthropos produces.?’ Variation is truly the 
only constant factor in the element speculation. Gayomart is 
therefore still a sufficient beginning for the phenomena concerned. 

That brings us finally to the question of nomenclature. Anthro- 
pos is a designation applied to the figure under discussion only in 
systems where it has lost much of its original vitality. It is 
almost certainly an abbreviated form of the terms ‘First Man,” 
‘Primal Man” or ‘‘Great Man.’ Gayomart, we have constantly 
referred to as the “prototype of humanity.’”’°8 He is not on a 
level with the protoplasts of the Semitic world and Greece. Their 
nearest counterparts in Iran are Mashya and Mashyoi. The 
difficulty thus stated is not insurmountable, It arises solely 
from the inadequacy of the terminology current in non-Iranian 
circles for the expression of Iranian ideas. The Anthropos never 
descends in person or role to the level of a mere protoplast. He is 
always closer to a prototype. But what designations other than 
‘““Primal Man” and ‘‘Great Man” could people of Mesopotamia 
and Syria apply to a human prototype. They had, to our knowl- 
edge, no terminology to express typicality. Primal Man was 
the nearest approach possible. Its use in connection with the 
Anthropos does not separate the latter from Gayomart. 

Perhaps it will be possible to arrive at a more definite conclu- 
sion from the discussion of nomenclature. Among the designations 
applied to our figure, only Anthropos, Adam and Adamas can be 
called proper names. These, however, represent a late develop- 
ment. The earliest terminology applied to the Anthropos is 
entirely descriptive, as for instance ‘‘Upper Man,” “‘Great, Most 
Glorious and Perfect Man” and, perhaps, even ‘‘ Primal Man.” 
In the strict sense of the word the Anthropos is then originally 
nameless. The same is true of the proposed Iranian prototype. 


97 Trenaeus, I, 11, 1. 
98 With Christensen, p. 32. 
108 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


If we regard the passage in the third Gatha (Ys, 30, 6) asa reference 
to his person, the Iranian figure bears at first the generic designa- 
tion ‘“‘maretan,” meaning ‘‘mortal.’”’ In the Younger Avesta of 
the Sasanian period, the period that witnessed the growth and 
earliest diffusion of the Anthropos tradition, he was known by the 
equally descriptive term ‘‘gaya-maretan,” signifying ‘“ Life-Man”’ 
or ‘“‘ Mortal Life,”’°9 In the Pahlavi works this term is reduced 
to the proper name Gayomart. The designations originally 
applied to the Gnostic and Iranian figures differ in origin. Those 
applied to the former were determined by the consideration of his 
place and position, while those applied to the latter were determined 
by his nature. In kind and character, however, the two groups of 
designations are alike, for they are descriptive designations, not 
proper names. Both Anthropos and Gayomart are then originally 
nameless in the strict sense of the word. Perhaps this constitutes 
a further link between them. 

The chief points of divergence between the Anthropos in his 
primordial role and the Iranian Gayomart can, as we have seen, 
be explained satisfactorily as the result of the transformation which 
the latter would naturally undergo when transplanted to a more 
westerly soil. We therefore regard the Iranian origin of the 
Anthropos as a working hypothesis and proceed to the discussion 
of the psychic and soteriological aspects of the figure, their origin 
and development. 

4, In a number of Gnostic systems the Anthropos is considered 
the fountainhead of a material yet spiritual principle indwelling 
in mankind and the world. This principle is variously defined 
as the Soul, the Pneuma, Reason, or indeed as a combination of 
Soul and Pneuma or Soul and Mind. Where technical terminology 
has been evolved it is known by the names Jesus Patibilis, Inner 
Man, Son of Man and Adakas. 

The ultimate origin of this conception is a problem of great 
intricacy, and one the solution of which is not entirely possible 
to-day. What makes it so difficult is the fact that it is inextricably 
bound up with the as yet unsolved problem of the origin of the 
Soul Drama. 


99 Tbid., pp. 12-8, quoting the Yashts. 
109 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


It was a belief current in many parts of the ancient world that 
man has within him a divine element, a spark from the fire of the 
Gods. Appearing under many names, but predominantly that 
of ‘‘Soul” this element was more than the sum of a man’s sub- 
jective processes; it was a substance that came from God and 
returned to him. 

Attention was first directed to the question whence came this 
conception, by the German scholar Anz.!°° Examining the 
Gnostic material in so far as it was known at the time and con- 
fining his attention to the story of the soul’s final journey heaven- 
ward, Anz came to the conclusion that the conception originated 
in Mesopotamia. The basis of his findings was the fact that in the 
Gnostic description of that journey, taking the soul through a 
hostile stellar and planetary world, much of the Babylonian astro- 
nomical theology was presupposed. Bousset, who followed Anz, 
broadened the field of inquiry by taking into consideration Hellenic, 
Hellenistic, Christian, Jewish and Iranian conceptions in addition 
to those Gnostic beliefs already examined. He found that the 
idea of the soul’s heavenward journey appeared also independently 
of Babylonian astral theology. It need not, then, be Messo- 
potamian in origin. Indeed it was Iranian, he believed, for in 
Iran it appeared in its most highly developed form. The Greek 
parallels from Plato on, might be either an independent product 
or possibly dependent in some way ultimately upon Persian 
theology. These Greek parallels, whatever their origin, un- 
doubtedly contributed to the Gnostic statement of the Soul Drama, 
but were not sufficient to explain its peculiarities. The Gnostic 
form was essentially Iranian with an admixture of much Baby- 
lonian material which the conception acquired as it travelled 
westward to be incorporated in the Gnostic systems. !°! Bousset’s 
investigation, accepted in its main outlines by Cumont and others, 
remained in favor for some time. ! 9? 


100 Zur Frage nach dem Ursprung des Gnostizismus, Texte u. Untersuchun- 
gen, XV, 3 (1897). 
101 Die Himmelsreise der Seele, Archiv f. Religionswissenschaft, vol. 4 
(1900), pp. 136-69; 229-273. 
102 Wendland, Kultur, pp. 170-87. 
110 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


The inquiry entered upon a new phase with the works of 
Reitzenstein. What is new in Reitzenstein’s treatment of the 
subject is not the denial of the conclusions reached by Bousset, it 
is the use of new material, in the shape of syncretistic cosmogonies 
and Manichean liturgical texts, and the discovery of new facts 
concerning the nature of the Gnostic Soul Drama.!°* Of new 
facts there are two, first, that the fate of the individual soul in 
the Soul Drama, is but a rehearsal of the fate of the World Soul; 
second, that the heavenly journey is only one element of a larger 
unity which includes also the primordial descent and imprison- 
ment of the divine element. 

These new conceptions serve at once to broaden and yet to 
limit the Gnostic form of the Soul Drama. It becomes greater 
and more significant, and simultaneously takes on a religious 
guise that distinguishes it from that view of the soul’s vicissitudes 
current in the speculative systems of the philosophic West. 
Religion, says Reitzenstein, is older than philosophy. The 
Gnostic Soul Drama is inherently older than the Hellenic, because 
it is. religious. Its Psyche, the World Soul, is a mythological 
character, not a metaphysical postulate. 

Since the Manichean texts and the syncretistic cosmogonies, 
particularly that of Asonakes (?), embody elements that are of 
Iranian origin, Reitzenstein feels justified in looking to Iran as 
the source of the conceptions embodied in the fundamentals of 
the Gnostic Soul Drama. 

Now Avestan and Pahlavi sources, the basis for our knowledge 
of orthodox Zarathushtrianism, reveal intimate acquaintance 
with only one element of the Gnostic Soul Drama, namely the 
heavenward ascent of the individual soul. Reitzenstein has 
thought to find in a few passages some reference to the World 
Soul and its primordial descent to matter, but Gressmann!°* and 
Wesendonk!°5 are probably correct in maintaining that these 
passages speak only of the individual soul. Furthermore, it is by 


103 Particularly Reitzenstein, Psyche, and IE. 
104 ZKG, vol. XL (1922), pp. 184-7. 
105 Urmensch u. Seele (1924), pp. 61-3; but cf. Reitzenstein’s answer, 
Studien, pp. 124-6. 
fad 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


no means evident that the status of the individual soul in this 
world was regarded in Iran as of the nature of imprisonment. 
Man at all times exercises free will and finds about him a world 
which is not inherently bad. 

The hypothesis of Reitzenstein, however, does not look to 
Avestan and Pahlavi sources and what they have to say as the 
criterion of its justifiability. The ‘‘Erlésungsmysterium”’ built 
upon the religious form of the Soul Drama, is thought to be an 
element of popular Iranian belief, as distinguished from the formal 
theological convictions of Mazdaism embodied in the Iranian 
sources. So stated the hypothesis is difficult either to affirm or 
deny, the former because there are no criteria, the latter because in 
its character it is a step in the right direction. 

If anyone not as intimately connected with the study of 
syncretism as Reitzenstein were suddenly to postulate the existence 
of an undocumented popular Iranian religious atmosphere, we 
might be inclined to regard it as a subterfuge. Matters being 
as they are, it is a monument to profound grasp of the subject. 
The diversity, unity and general temper of those manifold syn- 
cretistic movements that appear on the horizon at the beginning 
of the second Christian century demand the existence, somewhere, 
of a proto-Gnostic form of religious belief, popular in character 
and mystical in outlook. The only question upon which there 
can be difference of opinion, is whether that projected sphere of 
thought is actually Iranian. 

Though it may seem to be a digression all this has a direct 
bearing upon the question whence comes the idea that the Anthro- 
pos is the fountainhead of a spiritual principle indwelling in 
mankind. 

To attempt to find its ultimate source in the figure and asso- 
ciations of Gayomart is, we believe, fruitless. Reitzenstein and 
Schaeder have in recent times produced evidence which might 
appear to argue to the contrary. It is the Great Bundahishn’s 
identification of the semen which flows from Gayomart at his 
death, with the soul.!°® Since the earth’s reception of this 
element actually results, according to Pahlavi tradition, in the 


106 Studien, pp. 223-6. 
112 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


birth of the first human couple, it might be said that Iran and 
Gayomart once more furnish a source for an element of the Anthro- 
pos tradition, this time that of the Anthropos’ psychic mani- 
festation. 

The identification which the Great Bundahishn upholds, 
though it has earmarks of primitive thought, is at variance with 
the rudiments of the psychology evolved by the scholars of Iran. 
For the theologians of Persia the nature and origin of the soul 
was determined not by the fact of its being an element of Gayo- 
mart, or even by its being a portion of the world soul, but by the 
consideration of the immateriality and incalculability of the sub- 
jective processes and phases of human nature. Hence the com- 
plexity in the composition of the psychic and divine portion of 
man, as they viewed it. Simultaneously it is evident that the 
shorter, or Indian recension of the Bundahishn preserves no trace 
of the identification referred to by Reitzenstein and Schaeder, 
and that the Great Bundahishn, in spite of itself, tells how the 
offspring of Gayomart receive the soul, not as an inheritance from 
their father, but as something that entered into their bodies when 
they passed from the plant to the human stage of their develop- 
ment.!°’ The creationistic rather than traducianistic nature of 
Iranian psychology reasserts itself once more. Thus it appears 
as though the identification upon which the Iranian origin of the 
psychic role of the Anthropos depends is either very late or very 
early (or both), but is under no conditions the expression of those 
ideas which were dominant in the circles to which we owe the 
bulk of our knowledge of Iranian thought, and played no part in 
the days that saw the rise and growth of the Anthropos tradition. 
Bundahishn XV, 1 we therefore consider no more than a reference 
to the fact that Gayomart at the moment of death became the 
father of the human race. 

The only alternative to the conclusion that the psychic role 
of the Anthropos is a secondary element of the tradition and not 
connected with Iran is this, that there existed in the popular 
religion of Iran an ancient goddess Psyche, the similarity of whose 
fate as compared with that of the defeated Gayomart, led at an 


107 Tbid., pp. 230-1. 
113 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


early time to the correlation of the two figures. To this hypothesis 
Reitzenstein until recently subscribed. Here, then, we see the 
bearing of the Soul Drama inquiry upon the Anthropos investi- 
gation. 

In view of obtaining conditions we prefer to leave the question 
of the hypothetical Iranian Psyche open, till a more detailed 
analysis of the manifold lines of influence running hither and yon 
between the lands of the East in Hellenistic times shall have 
determined whether the proto-Gnostic atmosphere with which the 
Soul Drama is intimately connected had its home in Iran or 
elsewhere. This conclusion does not relieve us of the necessity 
of endeavoring to ascertain whether the superimposed and fluctuat- 
ing forms of the Anthropos tradition have any verdict to render 
in the matter of the primary or secondary nature of the Anthropos’ 
psychic manifestation. As a matter of fact they seem to have a 
verdict to give. 

It is a peculiar phenomenon of Manichean theology that the 
Primal Man is connected in two ways with humanity. In the 
first place he is the fountainhead of that divine element which 
was lost by him in the primordial conflict, was captured by the 
archons and was finally deposited by them at their own volition 
in the human frame. In the second place, the Primal Man assisted 
at the very act of man’s creation, by furnishing the prototype in 
whose image man was moulded. 

This double tradition is echoed in the remainder of the Gnostic 
sources. On the one hand we have the Valentinian and Christian 
Naasene systems bearing witness to the immanence of a portion 
of the Anthropos’ person, but failing either to presuppose or present 
a reason for its presence, a reason such as would root the phenom- 
enon in the nature, character or life of the Anthropos himself. 
On the other hand we have the Valentinian counterpart of the 
Manichean account of how man was made in the image of the 
Anthropos. 

Aside from this double tradition stands that represented by 
the Chaldean Tale, as interpreted by the author of the Pagan 
Naasene Document, and by the Poimandres. Here we are told 
that the divine element came to reside in man in connection with 

114 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


the Anthropos’ assistance at the episode of man’s creation, an 
episode in which the image of the Anthropos also plays a part. 

Appearing coincidentally in the two sources that give us our 
earliest glimpse of the Anthropos, the last of these traditions 
would appear to have greatest claim to priority and relative 
originality. This is borne out by the fact that it connects itself 
most readily with the story of Gayomart, for of all the Gnostic 
accounts the Chaldean Tale and the Poimandres alone rehearse 
the Iranian conception that the moment of the death or downfall 
of the prototype is the moment of the birth of the human race. 

The authors of both the Pagan Naasene Document and the 
Poimandres believed that the Anthropos furnished the proto- 
plast with a divine element from above. To the former, this 
element was the Spirit, the Inner Man. If he interpreted the 
Hebrew account of the creation of man in the light of this con- 
ception, he no doubt found a reference to that divine element in 
the “‘image”’ of the Anthropos mentioned in the Chaldean Tale. 

Fundamentally, we are inclined to believe, the Chaldean Tale 
does not support his views. The image, here, is not something 
which man has. It is something that man is, and the man who 
is the image, is in this case ‘‘the man whom the earth produced.”’ 
Secondly, the Chaldean Tale represents, as we have seen, that 
strand of tradition regarding the primordial conflict of the Anthro- 
pos in which the latter is defeated. Where this defeat entails 
the loss of an element, the loss is coincidental with the defeat. 
But the Chaldean Tale presupposes that the Anthropos is still 
undefeated after the ‘‘image-man’’ has been produced. The 
image cannot then represent a lost element. Finally, the thing 
that is enslaved is the wAdcpa, a term applicable only to the 
“Image-man”’ and not applicable to the image or the Spirit. 

Nor is it possible to suppose that the soul was the Anthropos’ 
contribution to‘ human nature in the Chaldean Tale. Reitzen- 
stein at one time defended this interpretation,!°® but it cannot 
be harmonized with the statement in the narrative that what is 
imprisoned and enslaved is the zAdopa of the Anthropos. The 
soul should be the one to suffer at the hands of the body. 

108 Pormandres, p. 84, n. 7. 

115 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


We must therefore conclude that in the Chaldean Tale the 
Anthropos’ contributes neither Spirit nor Soul to the nature of 
human existence. This constitutes an argument against the con- 
tention that the psychic manifestation of the Anthropos is a 
fundamental element of the Anthropos tradition. While it 
occupied a permanent place in all of the early Western and later 
Eastern forms of Anthropos Theology, it fails us when we trace 
the tradition back to its early Mesopotamian form. ‘Thereby we 
gain a check upon our interpretation of the Iranian sources. _ 

There is one great objection to this contention. How, if the 
Anthropos contributed neither Spirit nor Soul to human nature 
in the Chaldean Tale, can the story of man’s creation therein 
recorded involve the defeat of the heavenly Man? It is a ques- 
tion concerning the real meaning of the Chaldean Tale and one 
which we cannot afford to avoid since in its answer lies not only 
the defense of our position but the key to the genesis of that 
whole complex of ideas associated with the creative activity of 
the Anthropos. 

In a greater or lesser degree both the Chaldean Tale and the 
Poimandres’ account are a fusion of the same two elements, the 
Anthropos tradition and the Old Testament narrative of the 
creation of man.!99 Both of these elements can be traced prior to 
their appearance in conjunction with one another. The former we 
have already pursued through some of its Mesopotamian and — 
Iranian ramifications. With the latter and its development in 
Hellenistic times we must now concern ourselves. 

The first to introduce changes into the Biblical accounts of 
creation were the Jews themselves. Impelled by the necessity of 
adapting the old narratives to the newer transcendental concep- 
tion of God and finding in the plural of the words “‘let us make 
man”’ the justification of their views, they associated the angels 
in ever-increasing measure with the act of creation:!1° In certain 
circles the angels were even thought to have furnished the proto- 
type in the image of which man was made.!!1 The likeness 


109 Of the Poimandres, Reitzenstein admits this, Studien, pp. 23-5. 
1107), Ginzberg, T'he Legends of the Jews, vol. I (1909), pp. 52-5. 
111 Ber. Rab. 21, 5; Shemoth Rab., 30, 16. 

116 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


between man and God or the angels, however, the Jews never 
stated in terms of nature or essence. Man was like God only in 
outward appearance or in certain faculties, characteristics or 
capacities such as intelligence, immortality and free-will. !12 

Philo represents an individual development from this basis. 
He too speaks of powers!1? about Him,!!4* whom God employed 
in the creation of man.!15 These powers fashioned the body and 
soul, the elements subject to passion, while God himself made the 
human reason.!!© The similarity between man and God is 
limited to the matter of reason, but human reason is an immanent 
element of divine reason, the Logos.!!7 In reason then man is 
related to a manifestation of God but the “‘image”’ which makes 
man like God exists also apart from man in a mode of God, namely 
in the Logos. 

Paul, whose theology like that of Philo is an offshoot of Pales- 
tinian Judaism, clings to the traditional views where the creation 
of the first humanity is concerned. God and man are not related 
in nature. None the less he is familiar with the view which 
attributes to the image of God an existence independent of both 
man and God. To him this image is Christ.!18 

As soon as the Hebrew account of creation entered the world 
of the syncretists further changes were bound to be introduced. 
The angels who fashioned man’s body here represented grossly 
inferior or even Satanic powers. If that was the case how could 
man be made in God’s image? The angels could of themselves 
have no knowledge of that image. Consistent dualistic Gnostics 
of Marcion’s type answered the question by the contention that 
the image was that of the evil God, not of the good God.119 
More optimistic interpreters found a solution of the difficulty in 
the view shared by Philo and Paul that the image of God was 

112 Weber, Jiid. Theol., pp. 209-10. 

113 de Fuga, §69. 

114 de Confustone, §179. 

115 de Opificio, §75. 

116 de Fuga, §69. 

17 de Opificio, §69. 

118 Col, 1, 15, et al. 

19 Tertullian, adv. Marc., I1, 4-5. 

117 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


independent of God’s person and could act by itself. This image 
was thought by them to have revealed itself momentarily to the 
inferior powers. Having perceived it, the angels made man 
‘“‘according to the image.’ Reinterpreted after this manner, the 
Biblical narrative of creation was incorporated bodily in the 
Anthropos tradition. It finds its clearest expression in the Mani- 
chean sources.129 / : 

According to Genesis 2, 7 man became, at God’s hand, a 
“living soul.”” To the syncretists the soul was a familiar concept. 
It represented, as we have seen, that divine element that came 
down from the highest God and was imprisoned in inferior forms 
of existence, till at death it returned homeward. That being the 
case, it could not have been added to human nature by the agency 
that had created the body. The Soul, moreover, was regarded 
by the syncretists as something expressing itself not in terms of 
blood or breath, but in terms of action. The Soul furnished the 
members to the human body.!?! It followed from this, that the 
man whom the angels had created was a being which, lacking 
members, could not stand erect but moved by crawling, after the 
manner of reptiles. 

The alterations produced in the Biblical account of man’s crea- 
tion by its transfer into the syncretistic.sphere are best illustrated 
from what Irenaeus tells us of Saturninus’ view of man’s beginning. 
Here we are informed that 


Saturninus, like Menander, taught the one Father unknown 
to all, who made Angels, Archangels, Powers (virtutes: dudes) 
and Mighty Ones (potestates: éfovela:). The world, moreover 
and all things in it, were made by a group of seven angels. Man, 
too, was the workmanship of angels. (The following were the 
circumstances of his formation.) A resplendent image coming 
from the highest Power manifested itself below (i.e., outside the 
pleroma). When they (the angels) found themselves unable to 
restrain it (tenere: xparety ? ) for the reason that it immediately 
returned upwards, they urged one another, saying: “Let us 
make man in accordance with the image and likeness.” When 
the form (plasma) had been fashioned and proved unable to — 


120 Cf. above, p. 23. 
121 The members belong to the soul also in the Odes of Solomon, Ode 21, 4. 
118 


“~~ * 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


stand erect, by reason of the impotence of the angels, but 
wriggled (on the ground) like a worm, the Power above (desuper: 
&vwhev) took pity on it, since it had been made in its likeness, 
and sent forth a spark of life which set it upright, gave it limbs 
(articulavit) and made it live.}22 

What has already been said concerning the individualization 
of ‘‘the image of God” and concerning the Gnostic conception of 
the soul should clarify the sense and origin of most of what is 
recorded in the story of Saturninus. Two details alone have not 
been accounted for in the preceding discussion, namely that the 
angels wished to restrain the image and that the act of creation 
was inspired by this wish. We shall revert to them presently. 

With the story of Saturninus before us we are in a position to 
analyze the Chaldean Tale. This does not signify that the latter 
is a derivative of the former. It means that Saturninus’ story 
shows the range of ideas with which the Biblical account of creation 
was combined and the direction in which syncretists who had no 
direct knowledge of the Anthropos tradition were working in 
adapting the Bible to their needs. 

That the Anthropos tradition should be combined with the 
syncretized version of the Biblical account of the creation of man, 
as in the Chaldean Tale, is but natural. Not only did the two 
readily lend themselves to combination, but quite aside from this 
any narrative that told of a similarity between man and a heavenly 
power must prove interesting and valuable to circles concerning 
themselves with a heavenly Man. After all the best likeness of a 
human being is another man, and the Anthropos the ideal proto- 
type for a primal man “after the image.” | 

The identification of the origin of a number of details in the 
Chaldean Tale is quite simple. The Tale begins by relating 
that Adam is the man ‘‘whom the earth produced.” A little 
later we hear that he owes his origin to ‘‘the powers of the many.” 
The first statement recalls the fact that, in the Iranian tradition 
which provoked the Anthropos speculation, the undivided primal 
couple is produced by Spendarmad, the Earth. The second recalls 
the creative activity of the angels in the reinterpreted Biblical 
narrative. On the basis of the account of Genesis these two 


122 Trenaeus, I, 24, 1. 
119 


% 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


elements could be combined, for there man is actually made 
(though not born) of the earth and is fashioned (though not born) 
of agents speaking in the plural. What the Chaldean Tale records 
between the two statements of which mention has been made, 
shows that the Anthropos has been identified with ‘‘the power 
that manifested itself’ to the angels, an identification that is 
quite d propos in view of the fact that the Anne in Iran 
assists at the creation of man. 

The next statement concerning the heavenly Man is that he 
is at length to be subdued and that his overthrow is to be effected 
in connection with the creation of man. To this extent the 
Chaldean Tale again runs true to the Anthropos tradition, for in 
its Iranian form, we recall, Gayomart is overcome by hostile 
powers after a long struggle, and the moment of his defeat is the 
moment of the procreation of man. It is peculiar to the Chaldean 
Tale, however, that the overthrow of the Anthropos is the result 
(rather than the cause) of the creation of man, and that the over- 
throw is accomplished by the empsychosis of the body which is 
his image. About this detail the controversy concerning the . 
originality and primary character of the Anthropos’ psychic 
manifestation turns. Reitzenstein contends that either the author 
of the Pagan Naasene Document or Hippolytus has misinterpreted 
the sense of the Tale and given us an erroneous rendition of the 
original at this point. We should be inclined to believe that the 
element in question can be made intelligible by reference to a well- 
known axiom of ancient religious thought. It is a commonplace 
that in antiquity the image or name of a deity was considered an 
extension of the person of the deity. He who possessed such an 
image or was familiar with the name could by manipulation 
bind or honor the God at will. Has not this idea played a part 
in moulding the Chaldean Tale? The Powers fashion a material 
image of the Anthropos. The soul is added as in the Biblical 
and syncretistic accounts. Its addition gives the image auton- 
omous existence. It is separated from the Anthropos and placed 
under the control of the Powers. Thereby the subjection of the 
Anthropos is accomplished. ! 23 | 


123 The data on the subject are most interestingly presented in F. Preisigke, 
120 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


Can this interpretation of the statement that man is the cause 
of the Anthropos’ downfall be substantiated? Two facts should 
be noted in this connection. In the first place the role played by 
the image in the story of Saturninus and in the Chaldean Tale 
differs. In the former the image is in the upper realms and man 
is ‘according to the image.’’ In the latter the Anthropos is 
‘“‘above” and man on earth is the image. In the second place, 
Saturninus derives the soul from the power that originally mani- 
fested itself to the angels, while the Chaldean Tale leaves her 
origin doubtful. In both these details the Chaldean account 
departs not only from its Syrian counterpart but from the Biblical 
narrative. Such a departure seems to demand explanation. 
May it not have been caused by the introduction and operation 
of the magical axiom to which we have referred? Certainly the 
changes harmonize with the demands that would be made by the 
use of the axiom in connection with the story. 

One difficulty remains to be considered. Not only the Chaldean 
Tale but Saturninus as well claims that the angels desired to 
restrain the image and that the creation of man resulted from this 
desire. Now the latter gives no evidence of direct acquaintance 
with the Anthropos speculation. How, then, can we connect 
these details with the Anthropos tradition in the case of the 
Chaldean Tale? The difficulty lies, we feel, in Saturninus’ story. 
The two elements of which mention has been made do not fall 
into line with the changes made in the Biblical narratives by 
people unaware of the Anthropos speculation. Not only that, 
but they stand in direct conflict with the statement of Saturninus 
that the Power which furnished the image took pity on the lowly 
product of the angels and vivified it. The provenience of the 
Pagan Naasene Document shows that the Chaldean Tale had 
been transplanted to Syria in the days when Saturninus taught 
there. Because the details in question have their organic place 
only in the Chaldean Tale and since this Tale is not far removed 


Das géttliche Fluidum, and Die Gotteskraft in der friihchristlichen Zeit, in the 
Veroffentlichungen des Papyrusinstitut Heidelberg, Nos. 1 and 6, 1920 and 
1922. The unity between image and deity we are inclined to regard as 
dynamic not essential. 

121 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


either in time or place from Saturninus, we should be inclined to 
suppose that the first of the Syrian Gnostics had been indirectly 
influenced by the Anthropos tradition at this point. 

Our inquiry into the genesis of the Chaldean Tale substantiates 
the opinion that the Mesopotamian form of the tradition makes 
the Anthropos the father-creator of the human race and to this 
extent again connects the Anthropos with Iran. It serves further 
to show how the view that he contributed the psychic element to 
the human constitution arose. The Biblical account of creation — 
identifies the one who furnished the image with him who con- 
tributed the soul. The tendency among syncretists must there- 
fore be, to connect the Anthropos with the subjective element 
of man’s nature. Once the connection had been established and 
the loss of the element had become the reason of the Anthropos’ 
' downfall the frame work of the Chaldean Tale was rent asunder 
and the idea of the loss imbedded in the account of the primordial 
conflict. The conflict and the creation of man become two distinct 
acts in the drama. Yet the connection between Anthropos and 
image survived as a mute witness to the earlier steps of the develop- 
ment, though, of ‘course, the normal tendency to regard man as 
one fashioned ‘“‘after the image”’ altered the old conception that 
man is the image of the Anthropos. 

In the development of this part of the Anthropos tradition 
the Poimandres has an interesting but unimportant place. As in 
the Chaldean Tale the creation of man and the downfall of the 
Anthropos are elements of a single episode. The image, moreover, 
is still something that exists below, ‘‘in Physis” as the author of 
the tract says, and the Anthropos is still the father-creator of man. 
Yet in addition to being man’s father, the Anthropos also con- 
tributes to man’s constitution. To this extent we are already 
one step removed from the beginning of the process and one step 
nearer to the goal of the development. Illustrating as it does a 
period of transition in the course of the Anthropos tradition, the 
Poimandres, of course, embraces many elements the nature of 
which is entirely incidental. Speculative concepts such as Nous, 
Logos and Physis have taken the place of mythological figures. 
Mystical terminology such as that represented by the terms Life 

122 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF.THE ANTHROPOS 


and Light have entered the account. An amorous relationship 
is established between the Anthropos and Physis. To none of 
these can we give a place in the earlier reaches of the Anthropos 
tradition.!? Not the Poimandres but the Chaldean Tale is the 
key to the growth of the idea that the soul is the imprisoned 
““self”’ of the heavenly Anthropos, for “self” like ‘‘reason” and 
“spirit” are but variant designations of the one subjective element 
originally connected with the Anthropos as the soul. 


5. One additional matter requires our consideration, namely 
the origin of the idea that the saviors are the manifestations of 
the Anthropos. 

In Manicheism we found this conception most lucidly pre- 
sented. The seven messengers are the incarnations of the Anthro- 
pos’ heavenly self. With this view that of the Christian Naasenes 
of Syria coincided, at least approximately. In Egypt, as we have 
seen, the messenger was thought of as the son rather than as the 
remanifested person of the Anthropos. In the earliest strata of 
the Syrian tradition as well as in the early Mandean religion, the 
soteriological phase of the Primal Man was entirely lacking. 

If the last of these observations be correct, it is a clear indica- 
tion that the whole idea of the remanifestation is a secondary 
element. The Iranian sources register their agreement with this 
contention. Gayomart is never connected directly with the 
Iranian saviors. Of course there are allusions in the Avesta 
implying that Gaya Maretan was the first man and that the 
Saoshyant will be the last man, or again in Pahlavi there are 
statements to the effect that Gayomart, Zarathushtra and Saosh- 

124Since Windischmann (Abh. f. d. Kunde d. Morgenlandes, ZDMG, 
supp. 1, 1896, p. 73ff.) and Bousset (HP, pp. 203-5) it has been customary to 
seek the origin of the amorous situation depicted in the Poimandres in the 
episode of Gayomart’s “‘sweat,’’ an episode which Windischmann interpreted 
in the light of the Narcissus myth. Schaeder has shown that this interpreta- 
tion is impossible (cf. above, p. 89) yet the Narcissus myth continues to be 
invoked. For this we find no justification. In that form of the Narcissus 
myth current in the days of the Anthropos tradition, the youth did not yet 
descend to the lethal waters (the detail upon which the connection between 
him and the Anthropos is established), but pined away at the side of the pool, 
Cf. Pausanias, Descriptio, I, 10, 19; Ovid, Metamorphoses, III, 341ff. 

123 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


yant are the beginning, middle and end of creation,!?> but 
these statements co-ordinate rather than connect the persons 
mentioned. 

We have therefore but to ask ourselves, how and why was the 
role of the Anthropos extended to include that of the saviors? 

The statement just made, that Gayomart has no inherent con- 
nection with the messengers of God, does not signify that he has 
no ulterior significance whatsoever. As we have already seen, 
Gayomart is one representative of an Indo-Iranian type of figure 
the characteristics of which are that it is first of those to die and 
hence first and foremost among those who are dead. Gayomart 
corresponds to this type to the extent that he is not alone the 
prototype of humanity, but also the one whose bones are raised 
up at the end as the first, and for whom half of the light of the 
sun is reserved in the new world. The eschatological prominence 
of Gayomart may account in part for the prominence of the 
Anthropos among those who are gathered before the throne of 
God according to Manichean eschatology.!7® Might one then 
consider the soteriological manifestation of the Anthropos an 
extension from the idea that the prototype of humanity is the 
foremost in the new world? Such a view might be possible, but 
it is scarcely probable. Our earlier Gnostic Anthropos tradition 
has almost nothing to say concerning the end of the world. What 
little it has to report, and much of what the Manicheans believed 
besides, can be explained as the natural result of a tendency to 
bring together again the Anthropos and his lost self, the soul. It 
arises out of the union of Anthropos and Soul Drama. 

What the basis for the identification of Anthropos and saviors 
may have been is difficult to say. Our tradition itself affords two 
clues, in the first place the fact that the Manicheans enroll Adam 
and Seth in the number of those manifesting the Anthropos, in 
the second place the fact that in Egypt the savior was considered 
the son rather than the person of the transcendent Man. 


125 Yasna, 26, 10; in Pahlavi, Bund., 30, 7 and Dadistan i Dintk, 4, 6. 

126 His coming from the North is a detail of the tradition for which no 
definite origin can be given because the North played an important part in a 
number of Oriental religions, Persian, Babylonian and Jewish alike. 

124 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


Two avenues of thought are opened by these considerations. 
It is possible, on the one hand, that views such as those of the 
Mandeans formed the occasion for the appearance of the Anthropos 
in soteriological guise. The Mandeans, it will be recalled, con- 
sidered Abel, Seth and Anosh messengers of saving knowledge 
among men. ‘The identification of their father, Adam, with the 
Anthropos led to their transcendentalization. They became 
divine messengers, the sons of the Anthropos Adam. A short 
distance separates them at this point from the Manichean mes- 
sengers who are modes or manifestations of the Anthropos himself 
yet bear individual names. Another possibility is that the 
phenomenon at issue resulted from the correlation of Gnostic 
and Christian concepts, a correlation provoked by the similarity 
between the Anthropos and the preéxistent creator Christ or by 
the similarity between the names Anthropos and Son of Man. 

A third possibility, the importance of which we are not inclined 
to underestimate, may eventually be found in the Widsom specu- 
lation such as influenced early Christian christology in Luke and 
the Odes of Solomon and early Gnostic thought such as that of 
the Ophites as well. !?7 

We are not in a position to decide between these three pos- 
sibilities at present. Whatever the occasion may have been it is 
likely that the ultimate reason for the soteriological manifesta- 
tion of the Anthropos will be found in the necessity to bring the 
Anthropos and the imprisoned soul together once more at the 
end of time. 

The development of the Anthropos tradition as it has been 
outlined, has within it a certain element of verisimilitude. The 
latest part of the tradition is that characterizing the Anthropos 
as savior. The next in order of priority is that connecting him 
with the soul. The earliest portions are those which view him as 
the creator and father of man and as primordial champion. The 
first mentioned accrued to him in the littoral Orient, the next in 
the Jewish Gnostic sphere of Mesopotamia. The tradition regard- 
ing him as victorious primordial champion, and perhaps that 

127 Cf. my article, The Odes of Solomon and their Significance for the New 


Testament, Lutheran Church Review, July, 1927. 
125 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


ooking upon him as the creator of the race, presuppose his having 
passed through a period of Babylonian influence and his having 
sprung from a stock in which he represented a defeated primordial 
hero and the father of humanity. We have thus an unbroken 
line of tradition running from the littoral Orient via Jewish- 
Gnostic and Pagan Mesopotamia to some other place. The 
antecedent probability is that this place is still further east. Not 
only the ideas but also the course of the Anthropos tradition thus 
point to Iran as its ultimate home. 


6. With the origin and development of the Anthropos theology 


thus clearly before us we can ask the final question in regard to 
the antiquity of the whole speculation. As we have already 
seen, our sources range from the end of the third to the very 
beginning of the second Christian century. There they stop, as 
do all Gnostic sources. Three observations permit us to be 
certain that the speculation of which they tell is decidedly older. 
In the first place, our Anthropos tradition appears contempo- 
raneously at the beginning of the second century in Egypt (Poi- 
mandres), Palestine (Mandeans) and Syria (pagan Naasene 
Document). At least a generation must be allowed for its spread 
over this wide area. In the second place, the presence in our 
earliest Syrian source of a Chaldean Tale bearing the Anthropos 
story, necessitates a still longer period of diffusion. Beyond the 
Chaldean Tale, in the third place, lie Babylonian and Iranian 
stages of development. These argue for an even further exten- 
sion of the time limit. 

How long the whole process of the growth and diffusion actually 
took cannot be stated even in round numbers, for we have no 
knowledge of how swiftly the wheels of syncretism were running 
in the first Christian and the pre-Christian centuries, and whether 
their speed was actually the speed of the growth of the Anthropos 
tradition. Co-ordinating our general findings at this point with 
the results of our investigation into the antiquity of Gayomart, 
we cannot but say that the doors must be left open to all who 
would attempt to make the Jewish and Christian Bar Nasha 
intelligible as a development from the Oriental Anthropos. The 

126 


THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ANTHROPOS 


Anthropos tradition permits no a@ priorz conclusion one way or 
another. The matter must be decided on its own merits entirely. 
To connect the Christian Son of Man as savior with the Anthropos | 
directly seems foredoomed to failure because of the fact that in 
his soteriological manifestation the Anthropos is definitely a 
product of the second Christian century. This part of his growth 
we have been able to watch. Whether there is any common 
ground between the eschatological Bar Nasha of the Jewish 
apocalypses and the primordial champion Anthropos is another 
question. To that we now turn. 


127 


CHAPTER VI 
THE ANTHROPOS IN JEWISH THOUGHT 


1. THE analysis of the subject matter contained in our Gnostic 
sources has shown that the Anthropos when he first appeared on 
the shores of the Mediterranean, had passed through a long period 
of extensive development, and that his origin is probably Iranian, 
as Reitzenstein has surmised. Is it true, then, that in this ancient 
figure may be found the key to the Son of Man problem? 

The influence of Iran and Iranian thought upon Judaism is a 
moot question. It is not that the possibility of such influence 
can well be denied, for the Jews were long under Persian suzerainty, 
but rather that it is extremely hazardous to enumerate explicit 
instances. From Asmodaios to the doctrine of the resurrection 
the ground has been so insistently contested that incontrovertible 
proof for some one definite point of contact between the two 
religions has yet to be found. 

The effect of this clash of opinion has not been to discourage 
even cautious scholars from further efforts to connect Iran and 
the Jew.! It has led them rather to qualify the nature of what- 
ever influence they may see, and to consider it ‘‘an aid to the 
development of Jewish thought, rather than a controlling factor. ? 

In the case of the book of Daniel, where the Son of Man first 
appears, the problem of Iranian influence becomes acute. Here 


1A. V. W. Jackson, art. Zoroastrianism, Jewish Encyclopedia; cf. also 
A. J. Carnoy, art. Zoroaster, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, esp. p. 866; 
R. H. Moulton, Journal of Theological Studies, 1902, pp. 514-27; H. P. 
Smith, American Journal of Theology, 1910, pp. 337-360; G. F. Moore, 
Harvard Theological Review, vol. V (1912), pp. 180. 

?Schuerer, Geschichte des juedischen Volkes, etc., 4th ed. (1907), vol. TT, 
p. 587. 

128 


THE ANTHROPOS IN JEWISH THOUGHT 


we have a work composed in times when the Near East was a 
medley of cross-currents in cultural and religious matters. Here, 
too, is the first mention of the ‘‘mechanical doctrine of the resur- 
rection” which an authority like Charles believes to have been 
shapen by Mazdean forces. Above all, Daniel together with a 
number of later Jewish works, is the representative of that intensi- 
fied and phantasmagorical eschatology which is usually termed 
“apocalyptic” and constitutes a peculiar innovation in the 
religious literature of the Jews. 

Apocalypses and apocalyptic are a problem in themselves. 
Whence came the riot of symbols, illusions, images and mysterious 
actions? Whence too were drawn the dominant ideas that 
determine their interplay? The efforts of countless willful inter- 
preters, especially among Christian enthusiasts, have proven no 
help in solving the riddle; nor could we even by the wildest 
stretch of the imagination credit to any one man the invention of 
all the imagery which one such document embodies. Only since 
the mythological cosmogonies of the ancient Orient and the idea of 
a cyclic movement in history were discovered, have the origin 
and the axioms determining the use of apocalyptic symbols become 
intelligible. Cheyne may therefore well have been correct 
when he said that in apocalyptic ‘‘ Persian influence upon Judaism 
may most surely be recognized.’’® 

These considerations place the mythological and Iranian 
origin of apocalyptic figures such as the Son of Man distinctly 
within the range of possibility. To convert this possibility into 
a probability, however, it will be necessary to show: 

1. That the Jewish figure in question cannot be explained 
adequately as a product of Hebrew thought. 

2. That it and the proposed foreign prototype are basically 
homogeneous, and 

3. That the suggested prototype was actually adaptable to the 
expression of those Jewish ideas which it served to convey in the 
new environment. 

3 Eschatology Hebrew, Jewish and Christian, Jowett Lectures (1899), p. 136. 

4Cf. Gunkel, Schoepfung und Chaos, 1895. 


’ Encyclopedia Biblica, vol. [V, p. 5439. 
129 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN | 


2. The Bar Nasha appears first in the vision recorded in the 
seventh chapter of the book of Daniel. The seer, we are told,. 
beholds four winds stirring up the sea, and four beasts rising from 
the depths. The first is like a lion, the second like a bear, the 
third like a leopard and the fourth an incongruous monster the 
identity of which is not established, but which, from its description,. 
must be the most horrible creature imaginable to the apocalyptist. 

From the monsters the prophet turns to see thrones erected 
and the Ancient of Days seating himself in judicial capacity amid 
a host of ministering powers. While the seer’s mind dwells now 
on the majesty of the divine presence, judicial sentence is passed, 
for when he turns to the beasts again, it is to see the fourth slain 
and the others deprived of their power and circumscribed in the 
period of their existence. Thereupon we read: 


And behold with the clouds of heaven, 
There came one like a man; 

To the Ancient of Days he came, 
Before Him they brought him. 

And to him dominion was given 
And glory and kingdom, 

And all peoples, nations and tongues 
To him will do homage; 

His power is a power eternal 
That never will perish, 

. And his kingdom... ® 

That ne’er will be shaken. 


To this vision the remainder of the chapter in Daniel endeavors 
to give a satisfactory interpretation. Actually there’ are two 
such interpretations, one a succinct statement that is complete in 
itself (vss. 17-8), the other a more extensive rendering connected 
with the analysis of the fourth beast and its significance (vss. 
26-7). The first comprises three tetrastichs, as follows: 


Of kings four will arise from the earth. 
But the Saints of the Highest will obtain dominion; 
And possess the kingdom for . . . 7 ever and ever. 


® Lacuna with Marti, Kautzsch, Heilige Schrift des A.T., 3rd ed. 
7 Omit “ever, even for” as a gloss with Kittel, Biblia Hebraica. 
130 


THE ANTHROPOS IN JEWISH THOUGHT 


The second is couched in exultant distichs, the irregular strophes 
ending in tristichs. 


And the court shall sit. 
And its® power be taken 
To consume and destroy it to the end. 


And the kingdom and the power 

And the majesty of dominions 

Beneath all heavens 

Shall be given to the people 

To the Saints of the Highest. 

His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. 


And all dominions 
To him shall do service and homage. 


Before we can consider the relation of the Anthropos to the 
“‘man-like” one of this vision we must ask ourselves whether the 
latter is at all intelligible as a product of Jewish thought. 

To put this question to the text of Daniel is neither to deny 
or affirm the reality of the visionary experience involved, for 
whether reflection or religious intuition have moulded the ele- 
ments of the tale, its narration was of necessity dependent upon 
the writer’s intellectual horizon. Upon its answer, however, a 
great deal else depends. Other writers in Jewish circles have 
utilized and even augmented the figure of the Bar Nasha, but all 
invariably harken back to Daniel’s description of him. This 
indicates that he is traditional and Jewish only in so far as he may 
be said to be the creation of the author of Daniel. 

According to the authoritative interpretation that follows the 
vision, the man-like one represents the Saints of the Most High. 
To embody a group in the form of an individual after this fashion, 
was but natural under the circumstances. Groups are inherently 
difficult to handle, and besides, the Hebrew mind was well versed 
in the use of personifications, as the Ebed Yahwe® and certain 


8j.e., the beast’s power. 

9 Of course only in the prophecies of Deutero-Isaiah proper. The Ebed of 
the Servant Lyrics (Js. 42, 1-4; 49, 1-6; 50, 4-9; 52, 13-53, 12) is probably 
an individual. 

131 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


patriarchs who play the part of Israelite clans in Hebrew story, 
demonstrate. !° , 

Two explanations are usually offered to show how the author 
of Daniel determined the identity of his symbol. In the first 
instance the matter is said to be decided by the contrast which the 
writer saw between the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom 
of the Saints. The first he considered brutish, the second he 
thought of as ‘the typically human power among the nations of 
the world.”!1 Hence he placed beast and man in opposition to 
one another. Again, it is said, that the Bar Nasha in Daniel is 
none other than Michael, chosen to represent the Saints because 
he is the guardian angel of the Jewish nation, and described as 
‘‘man-like”’ because Daniel frequently speaks of angels as ‘‘having 
the appearance of a man.” !2 

If either of these hypotheses were entirely adequate the Bar 
Nasha might be intelligible as the spontaneous creation of Daniel. 
But such is not the case. The former entails a number of diffi- 
culties, particularly that of projecting into the writer’s mind an 
idea which is scarcely Jewish. Of course the Hebrew differentiated 
sharply between those of his people and other nations, but certainly 
there was in his religious exclusiveness nothing that would lead 
him to restrict the possession of humanity to himself. The very 
world outlook which such a vision as that of the four kingdoms 
presupposes, forbids a denial of the basic identity of human nature 
wherever it appears. The contrast which determined the symbols 
in question can therefore be only that between degenerate and 
typical humanity. But this in turn is unsatisfactory, for not 
only are the ideas of type and correspondence to type the product 
of western abstract thought, but, what is more, the beasts upon 
whom the comparison depends are anything but an expression of 

10 Especially Gen. c. 10; cf. Gunkel, Genesis, 38rd ed., pp. xvi-xix. 

11 So characterized by E. F. Scott, The Kingdom and the Messiah (1911); 
p. 37; frequently found, so Bertholet, Biblische Theologie, II (1911), p. 37, 
Marti, Kurzer Handkommentar, Daniel (1901), p. 52-3; J. A. Montgomery, 
International Critical Commentary, Daniel, 1927. 

12 So latterly Bertholet, op. cit., pp. 222-3, N. Schmidt, Ency, Bibl., art. 
Son of Man, and Grill, Untersuchungen zur Entstehung des vierten Evangelium, 
I (1902), p. 54. 

132 


THE ANTHROPOS IN JEWISH THOUGHT 


“degenerate” humanity. Their description embodies too many 
details arising neither out of the note of degeneration nor out of 
the situation in which the writer found the kingdoms which they 
represent.!? Besides, the kingdom which the Saints and the 
Bar Nasha exemplify is for Daniel still the Malkuth Yahwe, the 
prime characteristic of which is not its humanity but its divine 
authorship. !4 

The similarity in the terminology used of angels and of the 
Bar Nasha by Daniel is certainly striking and deserves further 
attention, but it fails to establish the angelic identity of the man- 
like one. The angel of whom Daniel speaks as “‘man-like’’ is 
in most cases surely, and in all cases probably Gabriel.!° Ofcourse 
angels are endowed with human form in other portions of Jewish 
religious literature.1® Yet the fact that human qualities are 
ascribed by Daniel only to Gabriel, shows that the designation 
‘“‘man-like” arose not out of a popular concept.so much as out of 
the name of Gabriel himself.!” The Bar Nasha would then 
logically have to be the angel Gabriel. With Michael functioning 
as the protector of the Jewish nation, Gabriel, however, could 
hardly be chosen as the symbol of the Saints. In other words, 
Michael lacks the name and Gabriel the calling to become the 
Bar Nasha. 

Furthermore, both Gabriel and Michael are well-known persons, 
active continually in bringing to their consummation God’s plans 
concerning his people. By contrast, the Bar Nasha is a new 
factor on the horizon.!® He has no connection with the minister- 
ing hosts (vs. 10) to which archangels must belong. Like the 
beasts he has but one specific purpose to fulfill. 

It appears, then, that the hypotheses advanced to show how 


13 Most nearly akin are the hybrid monsters of which even Berossos took 
notice. Cf. Zimmern, Das alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orient (1916), 
p. 20. 

14 Cf. Daniel 7, 27. 

15 So both Marti, Kurzer Handk., and Behrmann, Goettinger Handkom- 
mentar (1894), on the passages quoted above. 

16 Tobit 5, 4; cf. also Weber, Juedische Theologie, 2nd ed. (1897) p. 173. 

17S0 Marti, Kurzer Handk. on Daniel 8, 15. 

18 Volz, Juedische Eschatologie (1903), p. 11. 

133 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


the apocalyptist arbitrarily determined the nature of the symbols 
in Daniel c. 7, are unsatisfactory. The reason is by no means 
difficult to discover. The figures here employed as symbols and 
the situation in which they stand are not basically related to the 
idea which they serve to convey. The writer has employed a 
tale current in his day as a means to depict his vision of the con- 
summation of God’s reign._ Hence there is a clash between the 
statement that the saints were in conflict with the fourth beast 
prior to the appearance of the Ancient of Days and the fact of 
their subsequent arrival in the person of the Bar Nasha.!9 Hence, 
too, the description of the Bar Nasha gives no hint of past suffer- 
ings and purifications such as one might expect to characterize 
the people, judging from the rest of the book.?° For this reason, 
finally, the vision contains elements not organically connected 
with the supposedly dominant idea, such as the winds’ stirring 
up the sea and the issuance of the beasts from it.?! 

Now it is true that certain details of the vision arise solely 
out of the historical situation confronting the author of Daniel, 
and out of his interpretation of history and tradition. The ten 
horns and the little horn (vss. 7-8), the human heart given to the 
first beast (vs. 4), and perhaps even the clouds of heaven with 
which the man-like one comes (vs. 13) belong to this category. 
But in the final analysis these details represent merely the fruit 
of efforts to adapt to his purpose a tale otherwise not entirely 
suited. The very controversy raging about the interpretation of 
Daniel’s Bar Nasha shows that he is as much an element of that 
adapted entity as the beasts that rise from the sea. Since nothing 
in Jewish tradition serves to identify and render intelligible the 
materials adapted by Daniel in the description of his vision we are 
not only privileged but compelled to look outside the Jewish 
sphere to determine their origin and significance. 

The Bar Nasha appears a second time in the Similitudes of 
the Book of Enoch, that portion of the composite work comprising 


19 Vs, 21. 
20 Daniel 7, 25; 11, 35; 12, 1; cf. Porter, Messages of the Apocalyptical 
Writers (1905), p. 131. 
21So the winds, vs. 2, and the coming of the beasts from the sea, vs. 3. 
134 


THE ANTHROPOS IN JEWISH THOUGHT 


a group of visions from approximately the beginning of the first 
century B.C.?2 In the second of these visions the seer describes 
how he saw: 


. . one who had a head of days, 
And his head was white as wool, 
And with him was another being whose countenance had the appearance 
of a man, 
_ And his face was full of graciousness like one of the holy angels.?? 


Questioned ‘concerning that Son of Man, who he was, and 
whence he was and why he went with the head of days’”’?* the 
angelus interpres accompanying the seer replies: 


This is the Son of Man who hath righteousness, 

With whom dwelleth righteousness, 

And who revealeth all the treasures of that which is hidden, 

Because the Lord of Spirits hath chosen him, 

And whose lot hath pre-eminence before the Lord of Spirits in upright- 
ness forever. 


And this Son of Man whom thou hast seen 

Shall raise up the kings and the mighty from their seats, 
(And the strong from their thrones) 

And shall loosen the reins of the strong 

And break the teeth of sinners.?® 


The identity of the mysterious Son of Man has thus been 
established, but his origin remains obscure. Another portion of 
the vision throws light on this point. : 

Before the throne of the Lord of Spirits the seer beholds an 
inexhaustible fountain of righteousness. The reader soon realizes 
that this fountain is but a symbol of the “‘Son of Man who hath 
all righteousness,”?® an impression that is corroborated by the 
statement: ‘‘at that hour (i.e., the moment when he beheld the 
fountain) the name of that Son of Man was named in the presence 


22 Charles, The Book of Enoch, 2nd ed. (1912), pp. xlviii-liv. 
23 C, 46, 1, translation by Charles, in Apocrypha and Pseudigrapha of the 
O. T., vol. IT (1918). 
24 C. 46, 2. 
25 C, 46, 3-4. 
26 C. 46, 3. 
135 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


of the Lord of Spirits.”’2” Then follows a vivid description of 
the significance and origin of the Son of Man. 


Yea, before the sun and the signs were created, 

Before the stars of heaven were made, 

His name was named before the Lord of Spirits. 

He shall be a staff to the righteous whereon to stay themselves and not 
fall, = 

And he shall be the light of the Gentiles, 

And the hope of those who are troubled of heart. 

All who dwell on earth shall fall down and worship before him 

And will praise and bless and celebrate with song the Lord of Spirits. 

And for this reason hath he been chosen and hidden before Him 

Before the creation of the world and for evermore. 

And the wisdom of the Lord of Spirits hath revealed him to the holy 
and righteous. ”8 


In the third and last vision the Son of Man again appears. 
What is said of him in this case assures us that not only his name, 
but he himself is pre-existent. 


For from the beginning the Son of Man was hidden 
And the Most High preserved him in the presence of his might 
And revealed him to the elect.?° 


It further reaffirms the opinion that he will judge the righteous 
and sinners,?° and gives in addition an interesting description of 
the communion of the Son of Man with the blessed in the new 


world. 


And the Lord of Spirits will abide over them, 
And with that Son of Man shall they eat 
And lie down and rise up for ever and ever. 


And they shall have been clothed with garments of glory 

And these shall be the garments of life from the Lord of Spirits 
And your garments shall not grow old, 

Nor your glory pass away before the Lord of Spirits.*1 


27C, 48, 1-2. The statement serves to convey the authoritative interpre- 
tation of things seen. 
28 C, 48, 3-7. 
29 C. 62, 7. 
30C, 62, Off; 63, 11; 69, 26-9. 
31C, 62, 14-16. 
136 


THE ANTHROPOS IN JEWISH THOUGHT 


That the Son of Man of Enoch is identical with the Bar Nasha 
of Daniel cannot be questioned. Two such figures could hardly 
exist side by side in the same environment without being related. 
Besides, the Son of Man when first introduced in Enoch, appears 
in juxtaposition to a ‘‘Head of Days, whose head was white as 
wool”’ thereby distinctly recalling his associations with the Ancient 
of Days in Daniel.?2 

In so far as the Son of Man of Enoch is but a rehearsal of Daniel’s 
figure, that which has been said about the latter’s origin applies 
here as well. But greater than the common ground between 
them, is their dissimilarity. Instead of a mere symbol of the 
Saints, the Son of Man of Enoch is the pre-existent Messiah. 
The question then confronts us, is the difference between them 
due to the transforming influence which Jewish ideas have exer- 
cised upon the traditional Bar Nasha? Two explanations of the 
change might be offered in favor of an affirmative answer. The 
Son of Man in Enoch might be Daniel’s figure messianically mis- 
interpreted and described in terms of the traditional kingly 
Messiah #3 or he might be the newer transcendent Messiah bearing 
merely the nomenclature of the Bar Nasha. 

The first of these possibilities gains support from the observa- 
tion that there are in the description of the messianic Son of Man 
elements which harken back to the current conception of the 
messianic king. Like the latter he is characterized by righteous- 
ness;** like him, too, he vindicates the righteous and is a light 
to the gentiles.*° But it should be noted that there are even 
more elements in his characterization that lack all parallel in 
previous and contemporaneous messianic prophecy, especially his 
pre-existence, his concealment by God, his capacity as revealer of 
things hidden and as judge of all flesh. Some of these other traits 
might possibly have been called forth by a misinterpretation of 


32 C. 46, 1; ef. Dan. 7, 9. 

33 Bousset, Religion des Judentums, 3rd ed. (by Gressmann for Lietzmann’s 
Handbuch, section 21) (1926), pp. 265-8. Cf. also Bertholet, Bibl. Theol. 
II, p. 446. 

34 Book of Enoch, 46, 3; cf. Is. 9, 7; Jer. 23, 5; Zech. 9, 9. 

35 Book of Enoch, 48, 4. 

137 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


Daniel’s Bar Nasha, but certainly not the one most prominent 
in Enoch, the capacity of judge.?® In Daniel as everywhere else, 
it is distinctly Yahwe who enacts judgment over mankind. Only 
to an already heavenly and transcendent Messiah could this 
activity of Yahwe have been transferred. 

The second possibility leads to even greater difficulties. When 
the similitudes of Enoch were composed, the transcendent Messiah 
was as yet a new figure in Jewish thought.?’ Appearing for the 
first time in the days of the Maccabees, his manifestation is 
undoubtedly due to a number of causes. Among them were 
probably the realization that to expect the fulfillment of national 
hopes through human agencies was useless, the individualism and 
universalism which at that time were transforming the outlook of 
the people, and the attention focused in trying times upon those 
things which are above and beyond the sphere of the merely 
human.?8 Yet all these taken together and brought to bear 
upon the current conception of the kingly Messiah, could not 
have produced the transcendent Christ as we know him from the 
Testament of Levi (c. 18). There is a plus both in coloring and 
in the expression of idea and action that is not the result of reflec- 
tion but rather of the ancient mythologoumena which all of the 
ancient near East derived from the land of the rivers. It is 
therefore usually assumed that in this respect the transcendent — 
Messiah represents only the Jewish rendering of some figure 
given in the mythological interpretation of the world and its 
destiny, a foreign person used as the vehicle for the expression of 
conclusions derived from personal experience. 39 

Now the messianic Son of Man is actually the most concrete, 
complete and colorful form of the transcendent Messiah that we 
know. What would our impressions of this Messiah amount to 


36 Tbid., 46, 3-4. 

37 Cf. Ps. Sol., 72, 5; Sibylline Oracles III, 49f, 286f; Testament of Levi, 18. 

38 Volz, Jued. Eschat., pp. 58-60. 

39 So Bertholet, Rel. in Geschichte u. Gegenwart, art. Messias; Bousset- 
Gressmann, Religion, pp. 259-62; Gressmann, Ursprung der israelitisch- 
juedischen Eschatologie, (1905) pp. 286-94; 334-65; Volz, Jwedische Eschato- 
logie, pp. 61-2. 

138 


THE ANTHROPOS IN JEWISH THOUGHT 


if we were to omit all references to the Bar Nasha? It would 
Seem to follow, then, that we are at this point closest to that 
foreign source which moulded the picture of the transcendent 
Messiah in the first place.4? To explain the difference between 
Daniel’s Bar Nasha and the Son of Man of Enoch by reference to 
the heavenly Elect as we know him from other more indistinct 
manifestations, appears unreasonable. 

Here again we must, therefore, conclude that the problem 
represented by the altered significance of the Bar Nasha, cannot 
be solved by recourse to the influence exerted by Jewish ideas. 
The solution must lie in the nature of that non-Jewish figure which 
Daniel introduced and which must have been familiar to the 
author of the Similitudes in a different form. 

Our third and last glimpse of the Son of Man in Jewish apoca- 
lyptic comes from the book known as IV Esra. The sixth of the 
visions recorded in its pages reads as follows: 


And I beheld and lo! there arose a violent wind from the sea 
and stirred all its waves. And I beheld and lo! the wind caused 
to come up out of the heart of the sea as it were the form of a 
man. And I beheld and lo! this man flew with the clouds of 
heaven. And wherever he turned his countenance to look 
everything seen by him trembled; and whithersoever the voice 
went out of his mouth, all that heard his voice melted away as 
wax melts when it feels the fire. And after this I beheld and lo! 
there was gathered together from the four winds an innumerable 
multitude of men to make war against the man that came up 
out of the sea. And I beheld and lo! he cut out for himself a great 
mountain and flew upon it. But I sought to see the region or 
the place from whence the mountain had been cut out; and I 
could not. And after this I beheld and lo! all who were gathered 
together against him to wage war with him were seized with 
great fear; yet they dared to fight. And lo! he neither lifted his 
hand nor held spear nor any war-like weapon; but I saw only 
how he sent out of his mouth as it were a fiery stream and out 
of his lips a flaming breath and out of his tongue he shot forth 
a storm of sparks. And these were all mingled together—the 
fiery stream, the flaming breath and the stormy mass, and fell 
upon the assault of the multitude which was prepared to fight, 
and burned them all up, so that suddenly nothing more was to 


409 Bousset-Gressmann, Religion, p. 262. 
139 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


be seen of the innumerable multitude save only dust of ashes 
and smell of smoke. When I saw this I was amazed. After- 
wards I beheld the same Man come down from the mountain, and 
eall unto him another multitude which was peaceable. Then 
drew nigh unto him the faces of many men, some of whom were 
glad, some sorrowful; while some were in bonds, some brought 
others who should be offered.*! 


As though to fight fire with fire and to offset the despair of his 
people in those tumultuous times after Jerusalem’s fall#? by point- 
ing to a still greater tribulation that would soon befall the enemies 
of their God, the author of this vision has painted the picture of 
the Son of Man with all the colors of his palette. 

Unquestionably the figure thus outlined is identical with the 
one that inspired the authors of Daniel and Enoch. It has the 
“form of a man” and “flies with the clouds of heaven’’*? yet 
represents the transcendent Messiah. But the Son of Man of 
IV Esra is one step removed even from his counterpart in Enoch 
and thus the question whether indigenous or foreign traditions 
have moulded the character arises once more. 

What particularly differentiates the Son of Man in IV Esra 
from his earlier manifestations, is his combat with the hostile 
nations. The conception of such a final conflict in which all the 
nations of the world send their hosts against the chosen people at 
Jerusalem is nothing new. It goes back to the days of Ezekiel, 
whose prophecies concerning Gog and Magog found a permanent 
place in later Jewish thought and are probably reflected here once 
more.** True, the credit for the destruction of the enemy, 
formerly attributed to Yahwe exclusively, has here been given to 
the warrior Son of Man. The change, however, is intelligible 
and natural since the latter was already before the days of IV 
Esra an element of the transcendent world and an agent of God 


41C, 13, 1-13. Translation and numbering by Box in Charles, Apoc- 
rypha and Pseudigrapha, II, 616-17. 

42 Accepting the data of circa 100 a.p. with Bruno Violet, Griechische 
christliche Schrifsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte, vol. 32, 3, p. xlix. 

43. C. 13, 3. 

44 Hzek. c. 38-9; cf. Joel c. 3. Later traces of Ezekiel’s conception 
gathered by Volz, Jued. Eschat. pp. 174-5. 

140 


THE ANTHROPOS IN JEWISH THOUGHT 


himself. In this respect, then, as champion in the final conflict 
with the enemy nations, the Son of Man of the last apocalypse is 
an indigenous product. 

A number of other particulars betray Jewish origin. The 
statements that everything trembled before his gaze and melted 
like wax before his voice, expressive as they are of judiciary capa- 
city, directly recall the description of Yahwe in the Old Testament, 
especially in the book of Psalms.4° The fiery stream, the flaming 
breath and the storm, though their juxtaposition is new and 
unexplained, are individually stereotype in theophanic descrip- 
tions and have their closest parallels in Isaiah.4® From Daniel 
the later work has borrowed the winds that stir up the sea, and 
the “‘coming forth from the heart of the sea,’’ which he now asso- 
ciates with the arrival of the Son of Man.4’ Even the mountain 
cleft from nowhere can be explained from Jewish sources as a 
combination of the mysterious stone of Daniel with the mountain 
of Zion featured in Joel’s prophecy of the final conflict of the 
nations. 48 

Given the individualized, transcendent and preéxistent Son 
of Man, we may therefore conclude, there is little or nothing of 
note in IV Esra c. 13 that cannot be explained as an accretion from 
indigenous Jewish ideas. This is as it should be. In the days of 
the Book of Enoch the figure to which Daniel first referred might 
conceivably yet have been known in its original foreign form. 
Two centuries, yes a century later, its origin must have been so 
entirely obscured that to the Jew the Son of Man was intrinsically 
Jewish. However much the force of circumstances might lead 
Judaism to change its views regarding this figure, the alterations 
could not be stated in terms of the foreign original and its asso- 
ciations. They must of necessity be Jewish. 

3. The preceding pages have shown that while many of the 
associations and activities of the Bar Nasha are intelligible as 
products of Jewish tradition, this tradition and the mentality it 


45 Ps. 97, 5; 104, 32; cf. also Micah, 1, 4. 
4611, 4; cf. Box’s note on JV Esra 13, 10. 
47 TV Esra 13, 2; cf. Dan. 7, 2 and Gressmann Ursprung, p. 354. 
48 7V Esra 13, 6, combining Dan. 2, 34 with Joel 3, 15-6. 
141 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


presupposes furnishes no adequate explanation of the genesis of the 
figure, of its dual role as symbol and personality, and of its con- 
nection in the latter capacity with the messianic hope. As it 
happens, the residuum of the unexplained includes elements the 
origin of which must be determined, if the Bar Nasha is to be 
revitalized. To endeavor to find in pagan thought a type, the 
supposed influence of which might clarify these difficulties, is | 
therefore not only permissible but necessary. | 

From what has already been said the limitations of such 
hypotheses as that connecting Anthropos and Bar Nasha are 
evident as well. Only such material the Jewish origin of which is 
doubtful can serve to identify his supposed foreign prototype. — 
On the pagan side only evidence of sufficient antiquity may be 
used to establish comparison, that is, in the case of the Anthropos, 
only those elements of the Anthropos tradition that belong to the 
Persian and Mesopotamian portion of his heritage. 

In seeking to determine the origin of the Man-like One and 
his ultimate identity, we cannot proceed from the analysis of his 
capacities, for they are not uniform, but solely from the descrip- 
tive designation applied to him and the situation in which he 
appears in Daniel. 

Much has already been said on the subject of the words “one 
like a man.’ Gressmann and Volz maintain that the “like” 
found in the phrase has no inherent value, but belongs to the 
apocalyptic terminology and serves merely to develop the atmos- 
phere of the mysterious essential to a vision.*9 If that were the 
case, the true designation of the Man-like One would be either 
“a man” or ‘the man,” the equivalent of ‘“‘the Anthropos.”’ 
The reference made by Gressmann and Volz to Ezekiel c. 1, 
shows that such an interpretation is possible, but further considera- 
tion indicates that it is improbable. In the first place, neither 
the author of Enoch nor of IV Esra so interpret it, for they con- 
tinually use demonstratives and modifiers with the designation 
‘““Man,” and in each case introduce the figure with the whole 
cumbersome phrase found in Daniel.°® Secondly, while the beasts 

49 Gressmann, Ursprung, p. 342. Volz, Jued. Eschat., pp. 10-11. 


50 The passages are listed by Bousset-Gressmann, pp. 262-3. 
142 


THE ANTHROPOS IN JEWISH THOUGHT 


of Daniel c. 7 are all (save the fourth®!) described with a “like,” 
the beasts of c. 8, as well as the visionary image and the visionary 
tree of earlier chapters, lack this supposed bit of visionary machin- 
ery. The conclusion would seem to be, that the use of “like”’ is 
dictated not by visionary technique, but by the demands for a 
comparison. 

Now a comparison such as that indicated in Daniel 7, 13 may 
be made either upon the basis of the fundamental nature or with 
an eye to certain of the attributes of the things concerned. The 
‘fone like a man” may therefore be either a member of the genus 
homo with certain differentia distinguishing him from other mem- 
bers of the genus, or he may belong fundamentally to an entirely 
different group of beings, and, by certain of his qualities, recall 
the human kind. Marti and Bertholet, each in his own way, 
hold to the latter conception. Marti, if we may so state his view, 
holds that the figure’s genus is that of a kingdom, and that the 
typically human qualities of the kingdom of the saints have 
determined the phraseology: of the description.°? Bertholet 
maintains that the figure is basically that of an angel, and that 
the designation is intended to show that the angel in question has 
‘a human form like certain other angels mentioned in Daniel. >? 

The way in which the comparison is meant is not difficult to 
determine if we contrast the symbols of c. 7 with those of the rest 
of the book. The latter have nothing highly unusual in their 
description. The names ram, goat, tree and image applied to 
them cover all that is said quite adequately. The former differ 
in this respect. Eagles’ wings and multiple heads are not charac- 
teristic of lions and leopards in general. Bears do not normally 
eat flesh. There would seem to be a connection between this 
fact and the respective absence and presence of “like” in the 
nomenclature. In the first case the comparative is not used 
because it is not necessary. In the second case it is used to allow 
for the superadded peculiarities of the beasts, not to distinguish 


61 Its genus is indeterminate hence it needs no “like” to express approxi- 
mation. 
52 Kurzer, Handk., p. 52. 
68 Bibl. Theol., pp. 221-2. 
143 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


them generically from the animal whose name they bear. If the 
other symbols of Daniel c. 7 are then true members of the genus 
with which they are associated, we should by analogy expect that 
the ‘‘man-like one” is fundamentally a human being, but one 
who manifests certain peculiarities that set him apart from the 
rest of mankind.°* _ 

If this be truly the significance of the words ‘‘one like a man,” 
it at once establishes a possible point of contact between Bar 
Nasha and Anthropos. From the beginning the latter is, as we 
recall, a human being. His very origin depends upon his human- 
ity. Yet he was, at the same time, more than an ordinary man. 
He was the prototype of humanity and a member of the spiritual 
creation of Ahura Mazda, standing above and beyond the sphere 
of the normally human. This peculiarity of human and extra- 
human character the Anthropos never lost. It finally produced 
the anomaly of a ‘‘man” in the pleroma of the dualistic 
Gnostics. 

But as we have already noted, the Anthropos even when he 
appeared in Mediterranean lands had as yet no proper name. 
The appellatives “‘first man,” ‘‘great man,” ‘‘great, most glorious 
and perfect man” were all the result of efforts to identify and 
localize in some way the person of the equally nameless “mortal 
life,’ Gaya-maretan, in the form which that person had taken 
while passing through Mesopotamia. The designation ‘one 
like a man”’ therefore serves to connect the bearer and the Anthro- 
pos, because it harmonizes with the sort of terminology applied 
to the pagan figure. 

But more important than the matter of the designation is 
that of the situation in which the Bar Nasha first appears. It 
presents in a graphic way the fate of kingdoms. To what has 
been said of the mythological origin of apocalyptic symbols and 
situations, those of Daniel form no exception. But while Burkitt 
has succeeded in establishing the zodiacal origin of the ram and 
the goat of Daniel c. 8, as the representatives of Persia and Syria, °° 


54 Gressmann and Volz arrive at this conclusion but from a false premise. 
55 Meyer, Ursprung des Christentums, vol. II (1921), p. 194 quoting etal 
Kho, vol. IX (1909), p. 273. . 
144 


THE ANTHROPOS IN JEWISH THOUGHT 


the origin of the material found in Daniel ec. 7 as a whole is still 
in many respects the subject of discussion. 

The first step toward the partial solution of the problem is the 
realization that the first three beasts have been secondarily 
introduced into the situation in which they now appear together 
with the fourth. A number of indications point in this direction. 
In the first place the four kingdom conception which here multi- 
plies the monsters is something not bound up exclusively with the 
vision of Daniel c. 7. It appears also in c. 2. Next, as we have 
already noted, there is a difference between the first three and the 
fourth beasts. The first three are generically identified, but the 
last is so horrible as to be in a class by itself. Thirdly neither 
lion, bear, nor leopard belong in the watery deep whence they 
appear. Finally too, it must be remembered that only one of the 
four beasts is slain at the judgment of God, and that a distinction 
thus arises for which there is no motivation in the historical cir- 
cumstances which the prophet is depicting. 

There is admittedly little that would serve to identify the 
first three beasts, yet the fourth has two characteristics, its coming 
from the sea, and its description as the most horrible monster 
imaginable, which reveal its nature and origin. Only one creature 
will serve to cover these traits, the great chaos-monster Tiamat 
that dwelt in the deep (with Apsu) at the beginning of things, a 
figure far famed in ancient story, long familiar to the Israelites 
in other forms®® and worthy of finding a place in such a vision as 
that of Daniel. The identification can be verified. The fangs 
and talons of the monster, which Daniel treats as though they 
were among its most pronounced features, are also accentuated in 
pictorial representations of Tiamat dragons found on Babylonian 
seals. >” 

Of Tiamat there is one and only one important story, that of 
her conflict with Marduk in primordial times. If Tiamat is 
really the prototype of the fourth beast of Daniel’s vision, and if 
the fourth beast is really determinative of the action there unfolded, 


56 The fullest presentation is still to be found in Gunkel, Schépfung und 
Chaos (1895). 
87 Jeremias, Handbuch d. altorient. Geisteskultur (1913), pp. 26-7, pl. 15-7. 
145 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


we must necessarily conclude that the situation in which the Bar 
Nasha appears is an adapted form of the tale recounting the over- 
throw of the dragon. Of this again there are verifying indications. 
The four winds that stir up the sea prior to the arrival of the beasts 
also play a part in the Babylonian story.58 In fact the process 
of ‘‘stirring up” the deep has its counterpart there as well.°? 
The motif of the conflict itself, though it has been well nigh 
obscured by the idea of the judgment and omnipotence of the 
Ancient of Days, still lingers in the statement made in the course 
of the interpretation of the vision and in the words that tell us 
that the fourth beast and the Saints (i.e., the Bar Nasha) have . 
been at war with one another. © 

If, then, the situation presented by the vision of Daniel c. 7 
recommends itself to us as an adaptation of the well-known myth 
of the overthrow of Tiamat, what shall we say of the Bar Nasha? 
Does he belong to the dramatis personae of the myth or has he 
been introduced secondarily like the additional beasts and the idea. 
of judgment? In the Tiamat myth there is but one other person 
of importance beside the monster itself, namely her slayer Marduk. 
In Daniel’s vision the fourth beast is slain by reason of the judg- 
ment pronounced by the Ancient of Days. This would seem to. 
indicate that Yahwe had here as in other places stepped into the 
place of the mythological hero.®! In this case the Bar Nasha 
must be a later addition to the situation. Yet it must be noted ~ 
that while Yahwe’s judgment forms the occasion for the execu- 
tion of the beast, the identity of the executioner is not revealed. 
Simultaneously the interpretation of the vision, as we have re- 
marked, discloses that the Saints were at war with the monster 
prior to the arrival of the Ancient of Days, and that Jahwe’s 
coming gave the judgment to the Saints, that is, crowned their 
struggle with victory.°? This would make it seem as though the 


588. Langdon, The Babylonian Epic of Creation (1923), p. 183. 
59 Tiamat who not only dwells in the deep but personifies it is “‘troubled’” 
or “disturbed” by the winds, cf. Langdon, op. cit., p. 1388, Tablet IV, 48. 
60 Dan. 7, 22. 
61 Schépfung und Chaos, p. 88. 
62 Dan. 7, 22-3. 
146 


THE ANTHROPOS IN JEWISH THOUGHT 


Bar Nasha represented the conqueror Marduk, and with this a 
number of other observations concur. In the first place the Bar 
Nasha lacks, in the vision proper, a role in harmony with his 
prominence and with the benefits conferred upon him. In the 
second place the preéminence which Yahwe and his judgment 
hold can be explained as the natural result of the adaptation of 
the situation to the demands of Jewish Monotheism. 

If the Bar Nasha is to represent the conqueror Marduk of the 
adapted situation, how then can he simultaneously be the Iranian 
Anthropos? Here is after all the crux both in the analysis of the 
situation and in the problem of Anthropos and Son of Man. The 
prototype of the Bar Nasha must be at once a man above men, 
and a conquering deity. No other person will fit. And here our 
analysis of the Gnostic evidence for the Anthropos serves us well, 
for it has shown conclusively that as he passed through Meso- 
potamia the Iranian figure was identified with Marduk and con- 
sequently changed his character. He ceased to be merely the 
prototypic man sacrificed in the primordial struggle with Ahriman, 
and became instead the Great Man who signalized and prepared 
the victory of the heavenly powers over those below, Adamas, 
the unconquerable. True, the conquering Anthropos, whom 
Daniel may have adapted, is not the conquering Anthropos of our 
Gnostic sources. Yet the difference between them is a matter of 
the proportionate strength of the concurrent elements. Among 
the Gnostics (save the Mandeans) it was the dualistic cosmogony 
of Iran that furnished the rudiments of the setting in which the 
Anthropos appears, and thus determined a preponderance of 
Iranian elements in his characterization. In Daniel it is the 
Babylonian cosmogony that underlies, and hence it is Marduk 
who most nearly but not completely approximates the Bar Nasha.®? 
In both cases, however, the same two elements are fused, and 
after all it is this particular fusion that determines the origin of 
the figure in question. 

If such be the case, how could the Anthropos become a symbol 
of the Saints? Was it because of some quality inherent in him? 

63 Tt is the fundamental dependence upon Babylonian tradition that makes 
the Mandean figures like Manda d’Haye often so similar to Jewish figures. 
147 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


Probably not. Of course, the Anthropos in his Iranian form is 
the prototype of humanity and the first of the nghteous, but it 
would require a combination of these two ideas to make him 
exemplify righteous humanity, a combination with which we have 
no right to credit the author of Daniel since neither of the two 
ideas are necessarily carried by that form of the Anthropos myth 
which he used and adapted. More properly one might therefore 
ascribe the introduction and interpretation of the Anthropos to 
the appeal made by the situation in which he appears and the 
circumstances attending its adaptation. 

Since the days of Ezekiel the Israelites had been told to expect, 
and as Joel shows, did anticipate that all the enmity which their 
nation had experienced, would in the last times kindle a conflict 
in which the mightiest forces of the world would be allied to blot 
out the chosen people, but would themselves be vanquished by 
the power of Yahwe. Asan echo of this view, the notion that the 
execution of judgment was to be immediately preceded by the 
most terrible moments in the world’s history, with God arrayed, 
as it were, against the unbridled forces of iniquity, remained in 
Daniel’s day. Daniel was sure that the days of Seleucid oppres- 
sion represented the beginning of the prophecy’s fulfillment; he 
dared to say so in symbolic fashion. What more fitting vehicle 
for the apocalyptic expression of this thought than some form of 
the stories that recounted a similar climax in the developments of 
primordial times? Of course, a man of Daniel’s temperament 
was bound to refashion any such story in accordance with his own 
ideas, like that of the fourfold nature of the world powers. His 
sublimated idea of God, particularly, was sure to affect the pre- 
sentation. Where the staid and placid Ancient of Days was 
concerned, there could be no struggle for the enforcement of 
divine will. His judicial sentence effects the suppression of the 
enemy, no matter how great the threat. Any narrative, such as 
that of the Anthropos’ primordial conflict, when utilized by 
Daniel to express a similar dénouement in eschatological matters, 
must of necessity suffer the introduction of judgment executed 
by the Ancient of Days. The original champion, because of his 
heroic qualities, could not be identified with the transcendent 

148 


THE ANTHROPOS IN JEWISH THOUGHT 


Yahwe and was thus left to be discarded or put to other use. 
Daniel, it seems, has chosen the latter course and by analogy with 
the beast has interpreted him as the representative of the chosen 
people. 

If the symbolic role of the Bar Nasha fails to conflict with the 
hypothesis that in the Anthropos we have the origin of the enig- 
matic figure, then certainly the messianic significance attached to 
him in Enoch cannot. Given the presence of those forces which 
were in the days of the Book of Enoch changing men’s outlook 
and pointing to the inadequacy of the older messianic ideas, the 
Anthropos might well suggest himself as a means toward the re- 
creation of the ancient hope on a higher and nobler plane. As the 
representative of God, his champion and protagonist in the clash 
with contrary forces, as one who is connected in some way with 
humanity, and contributes toward its advancement, he is suffi- 
ciently akin to the older national Messiah to preserve continuity 
of thought, and lend himself to description in the traditional 
terminology. His extra-human position, his transcendence and 
preéxistence, on the other hand, when coupled with the current 
figure of the Messiah, could serve to raise that figure above the 
national, the material and ephemeral. It is exactly this com- 
bination of elements that the messianic Bar Nasha of Enoch 
represents. 

In the guise of a victorious champion the Anthropos belongs 
to primordial history. His conflict with the powers of the deep 
stands at the very beginning of things. The Son of Man, on the 
other hand, is an eschatological person. A broad gulf might 
thus seem to separate them one from another and to tear asunder 
the threads which appear to connect them. Yet such is not the 
case. 

Apocalypses endeavor to unveil the trend and nature of the 
future. A thorough knowledge of the present and its relation to 
the immediate past may furnish a man with intimations concern- 
ing the trend of events in the future, but it supplies no knowledge 
concerning the nature of those events. Since the apocalyptists 
actually described the future, they must have a second source 
of information to add to their knowledge of the present. This 

149 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


source is to be found in the Oriental axiom of the cyclic movement 
of history, the axiom according to which the events leading to the 
establishment of the new world are a rehearsal of those connected 
with the primordial creation. Cosmogony is thus the substratum 
of eschatology, and the Anthropos of primordial history the 
necessary prototype of the eschatological Son of Man. 

The discussions of the preceding pages have had as their focus 
the question, Does the Anthropos serve to explain those elements 
of the Bar Nasha which are not intelligible as the product of 
Jewish thought? Led, even as we have been, to an affirmative 
answer, Reitzenstein has proposed to connect with the Anthropos 
tradition a number of incidentals in the description of the Son of 
Man, which may also be regarded as Jewish in origin, and have 
so been listed by us.6* It so happens that in our estimation the 
details referred to by Reitzenstein, such as the ‘‘coming from the 
sea’’ and the ‘‘fiery stream, the flaming breath and the storm of 
sparks”’ found in IV Esra, are truly of Jewish origin.®*® Yet it 
must be admitted that hypothetically a given trait of the Bar 
Nasha might be doubly accounted for. The “coming with the 
clouds of heaven”’ may be an instance of this kind. It is certainly 
devoid of all mythological associations and simultaneously intel- 
ligible as a trait which the Bar Nasha received from Yahwe, and 
which is intended to convey the idea of his divine authority or of 
his celestial character. Now Daniel, who first mentions the detail, 
carefully distinguished, as we were led to believe, between the 
role of Yahwe as judge and that of the Bar Nasha. It hardly 
seems as though he would have borrowed from the description of 
Yahwe under the circumstances, without additional reason. This 
reason may be supplied by the connection of the Anthropos with 
a “cloud of light,’ a connection that appears to go back to the 
Mesopotamian period of his existence.*6 Given a mythological 


6 Reitzenstein, IE, p. 123. 

6’ The Anthropos connection with the primordial deep as found in the 
Poimandres, is as we have seen late cf. above, p. 123. The fiery phenomena 
of the Son of Man do not even remotely recall the five elements of the Anthro- 
pos; cf. above, pp. 18-19. 

66 Cf. above pp. 105-6. 

150 


THE ANTHROPOS IN JEWISH THOUGHT 


cloud in the retinue of the Anthropos, the author of Daniel might 
more conceivably have borrowed from Yahwe a trait used for the 
embellishment of the Bar Nasha. 

Speculation along these lines, however, is as good as useless, 
for even probability can never be attained. We feel at liberty, 
therefore, to forego the discussion of other details with a similar 
background. | 


4. The Anthropos, as we have seen, is a figure that even in 
its earliest forms has predominantly primordial significance. The 
Bar Nasha, on the other hand is exclusively eschatological. To 
say that the latter represents an adaptation of the former, implies 
that the Anthropos was familiar to the authors of the first two 
apocalypses in his original form. Why, then, has he left us no 
traces of his presence in that guise? 

It will of course be evident that the traditional theology of 
Judaism imposed severe restrictions upon the introduction of 
such a figure as the pagan Anthropos into its midst. Of the three 
capacities in which he might have been employed, as cosmogonic 
agent, as victor in an initial conflict between two hostile powers, 
and as ultimate progenitor of the race, two could not by any 
chance have been of service to the Jew. Hebrew monotheism 
absolutely prohibited the introduction of a second creator along- 
side of Yahwe, even in a limited sense, and had in addition long 
since obliterated the traces of the old conception, shared too by 
the Jew, that a tremendous conflict preceded the creation of the 
world. Only in an adapted form could the Anthropos as primor- 
dial champion find a permanent place in Jewish thought. In the 
third of his early capacities, as ultimate progenitor of the race, he 
must, however, have been unobjectionable. We are justified, then, 
in searching for traces of his presence in this form. The Jewish con- 
ceptions of the primal man are the sphere within which the search 
must be conducted. 

Preéxilic Israel, with which we must begin in order to com- 
prehend the course of developments, appears to have had no 
idea of a Primal Man, proprie dictu. What it told of the creation 
of man, it said of man in the generic sense. The account of 

151 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


Genesis c. 2, which echoes its views, is essentially the story 


Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit 
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world and all our woe. 


It is inspired not so much by the admiration of the creator and 
his creation, as by the observation of man’s present woeful exist- 
ence and the endeavor to explain its origin.®’ Thus interpreted 
in the light of the present, even the beginning of the race was to 
the older Israelite a ‘‘sad story.’’®8 It remained so, undoubtedly, 
for the preéxilic prophets as well. For, though the majesty and 
righteousness and love of Yahwe now entered as further themes 
into their religious compositions, the sad tale of man lingers on, 
so that as Davidson has aptly said: ‘‘the greatness of God and the 
sinfulness of man are the two poles between which the messages 
of the prophets moved.” ®? 

With the exile matters begin to change. A badly mutilated 
passage in Ezekiel,’° which describes as paradisiacal the luxury 
of the prince of Tyre, and which has often been pressed to furnish 
evidence of the idea of a divine primal man with whom the prophet 
is then supposed to compare the ruler in question, can be employed 
legitimately to show that interest was beginning to attach inde- 
pendently to ideal conditions such as those originally projected 
into the remote past merely as a foil to the woeful condition of the 
present. 

The priestly account of creation (Gen. 1) leads us one step 
further. Appearing here for the first time certainly as a concrete 
personality, the first man, Adam, enjoys the advantages of being 
created in the image of God (an image which he hands down un- 
sullied to the generations that follow),’! of having power over 
the living creatures of the land’? and residing in a garden which 
is God’s own dwelling place. 7 

67 Kautzsch, Biblische Theologie (1911), p. 177. 

68 Gunkel, Genesis, 3rd ed., p. 32: ‘Die Stimmung des Mythus ist traurig.’’ 

69 Davidson, Old Testament Theology (1912), p. 203. 

70 Ezekiel 28, 12ff. 

11 Genesis 5, 3; 9, 6. 

72 Gen. 1, 28. . 

73 Gunkel, Genesis, 3rd ed., p. 35. 

152 


THE ANTHROPOS IN JEWISH THOUGHT 


From this time on, there seem to appear slight traces of two 
distinct conceptions of man’s beginning, running side by side. 
The majority of writers continue in the older pessimistic strain. 
Nowhere is the frailness, helplessness and hoplessness of human 
existence more clearly documented than in Job,’* and yet Gunkel 
is probably correct in quoting the passage where Job’s wisdom is 
ironically questioned in the words ‘‘art thou the first man that 
was born, or wast thou brought forth before the hills,’’’° as an 
indication that even to the author of Job the idea of an ‘‘all-wise”’ 
protoplast was known.’® Perhaps, too, Psalm 8, modelled as it 
is on Genesis c. 1 (P), embraces in its two statements, first, that 
man is but a little lower than Elohim, and is crowned with honor, 
perfection and dominion, and secondly, ‘‘what is man that thou 
art mindful of him,” an attempted reconciliation of two current 
opinions concerning man’s origin and destiny. 

However this may be, the extra-canonical literature of Judaism 
not only gives excellent testimony to the co-existence of two 
evaluations of the protoplast,’’ but shows that the condemnatory 
is losing favor to the laudatory. IV Esra and II Baruch are the 
prime representatives of the former. They are pronounced in 
their verdict that through the fall of Adam sin has come upon the 
whole world, and that even before the fall,’® Adam had a kernel 
of evil within him, ’ 9 and as a consequence an evil heart.°° Opposed 
to them stand the books Wisdom, Jubilees, the Enoch literature, 
Sirach and the Sibylline Oracles. The first three without excep- 
tion transfer the blame for the present degraded state of man, a 
state once determinative of the nature of man’s beginning, to the 
shoulders of Cain,®! the demons,®? or the angels.°* Together 

74 Bertholet, Bibl. Theol. II, p. 133. 

75 Job, 15, 7. 

76 Gunkel, Genesis, 3rd ed., p. 33. 

77 Even the pessimistic interpreters now deal no longer with man in general 
but with an individual protoplast. 

78 ITV Esra 3,7; 7,11; IJ Bar. 23, 4; 48, 42. 

79 TV Esra 4, 30f. 

80 Thid., 3, 21f. 

81 Wisdom of Solomon, 10, 3. 


82 Jubilees 5. 


83 7 Enoch 6. 
153 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


they give a highly ennobled picture of the first man. His glory 
when created was above that of every living thing.84 From his 
abode in Paradise, which was in the third heaven,®*® he could see 
the angels before God’s throne.?® Indeed, he was himself an 
angel, a ruler of the earth.?”? Wisdom guided him to the last 
and delivered him from transgression.88 He is a symbol of the 
cosmos, 8° a perfect microcosm. 99 

Even Philo may be adduced as a witness for the newer inter- 
pretation of man, for, though what he says of the ‘‘heavenly 
man” is stated in Platonic and Stoic terms, his interest in that 
figure cannot be explained save in the light of the apocrypha and 
the ‘‘Adam Literature.” ?! 

The term ‘‘Adam Literature’? we apply to that group of 
accounts of the lives and vicissitudes of the Adamites and Adam, 
that has come down to us in Syriac, Ethiopic, Greek, Latin, 
Armenian and Slavonic versions.?* They represent for the most 
part, imaginative expatiations and Midrashim upon the stories 
of Genesis. But imagination alone is not sufficient to account for 
the favorable impression of Adam gained from them, and many 
of the elements utilized in his description. A definite tradition, 
such as that which we have followed in the apocrypha, must have ~ 
been incorporated in these works. Now most of the works, as © 
we have them, are of a late date, and show unmistakably the 
imprint of Christian thought.9? Still, the tradition which they 
embody cannot be said to be Christian, for those whose opinion 

84 Sirach 49, 14-16, and note. 

85 JT Enoch 8; cf. 2. Cor. 12, 3-4. 

86 Ibid., 31, 2. 

87 Tbid., 30, 11-2. 

88 Wisdom 10, 1; ef. Jub. 2, 23-4. 

89 Sibyl. Oracles III, 24-5. 

9° TT Enoch 30, 8-13; cf. E. Meyer, Ursprung, II, pp. 350-1. 

91 Cf. Gressmann, Ursprung, p. 362. 

92 The works in question are (1) the cognate Apocalypse of Moses, the 
Vita Adae et Evae, and the Life of Adam and Eve, edited and reconciled in 
Charles, Apocrypha, II, pp. 123-54; (2) the Conflict of Adam and Eve, trans- 
lated by S. C. Malan (1882): (3) the ‘‘Adamsschriften” translated by Preus- 
schen, in Festgruss fiir B. Stade (1900), p. 165ff. 

93 Charles, Apocrypha, vol. II (1913), pp. 126-9. 

154 


THE ANTHROPOS IN JEWISH THOUGHT 


guided the development of Christian ideas, built their interpreta- 
tion of the protoplast upon the words of Paul ‘‘as in Adam all 
sinned,”’ and upon the older pessimistic view of man’s beginning 
which Paul as a former Pharisee represents.?* That the Adam 
Literature, none the less, achieved among Christians the popularity 
evinced by its manifold form and preservation, is evidence that it 
formed part of the precious inheritance which the nascent Church 
received from Judaism before the ties binding them together 
were finally sundered. It becomes thus, with certain limitations, 
a source for our inquiry. 

The initial state of Adam these texts regard as a form of 
heavenly existence not comparable in any way to that of later 
humanity. The Ethiopic text describes it as a condition of 
spiritual effulgence, or luminous spirituality akin, perhaps, to 
that of the Homunculus of Goethe’s ‘‘Faust.”’9° The fall, it con- 
siders a lapse from this state into incarnation. A cognate con- 
ception appears in the Armenian documents, where the dis- 
obedience of Adam is followed by the loss of his “garment of - 
light,’’°° and where the fall appears as a downward precipitation 
from realms of everlasting brilliance.?7 Here, too, we find the 
peculiar idea, that the protoplast fell first from absolute light to 
absolute darkness, and after six days was redeemed and brought 
to the land of intermittent sunshine and shadow. 98 

Though the fall, as is apparent, plays an extensive part in the 
Adam Literature, it fails to stamp Adam as a woeful subject. 
Gifted with the powers of divine intervention, he performs miracles 

94 Rom. 5, 12-4. Of course there were fluctuations of opinion even among 
the Christian writers. Tertullian speaks of Adam as a prophet. (de Anima, 
11, 43.) Tatian condemned him to Sheol (Iren. I, 28, 1) and Origen was 
rebuked for comparing Adam and Eve to Christ and the Church. (Socrates, 
Ecclesiastical History, III, 7). But these fluctuations are of minor significance. 
The main trend of thought goes over Paul, Tertullian (de Carne Christi 16), 
Ambrose (in Luc. VII, pars. 164, 234) to Augustine (Quaestiones, 66, 3-5; 
de Libero Arbitrio 20, 56 et al.) cf. Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, 4th ed. (1909), 
pp. 137-8.) 

% Malan, pp. 10; 15. 

96 Preusschen, p. 191. 

97 Tbid., p. 193. 


98 Tbid., pp. 192-3. 
155 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


upon earth, even after the lapse.99 He is privileged in visions to 
behold the heavenly realms and to commune with God.1°° At 
the close of his life, his soul is borne aloft and seated upon the 
throne with God !°! or upon the throne of Satan; !°? for throughout 
his life Adam is himself the great antagonist and opponent of the 
powers of evil. !°3 

In rabbinical theology the two interpretations of Adam current 
in the religious literature of later Judaism and nascent Christianity 
find a further echo. Though they never saw fit to deny the 
freedom of the will nor the possibility of sinlessness, in other words 
to establish a doctrine of original sin, the great teachers of the 
later centuries granted that Adam’s fall was of fatal consequence 
for mankind. By it the evil inclination, the Yezer hara, previously 
dormant, was awakened and became man’s actual master and 
king, /°* so that ‘‘there is no one who has not sinned and there is 
no creature that has not incurred guilt before God.”!95 Thus 
through Adam, guilt and death have actually come to all genera- 
tions.1°& Yet, Adam is to them more than the author of guilt. 
He is set upon a plane superior to that of normal humanity. He 
lived in purity, beauty and wisdom,!°’ as the monarch of all 
creation.1°8 Heavenly light surrounded him!°9 indeed he was 
himself the light of the world.!!° Male and female were united 
in his person, !!1 and his body thus became a symbol of the Torah 
under which man was destined to live.!!2 His stature and size 
were those of a giant, filling both heaven and earth. !1% 

99 Charles, Apocrypha, II, p. 135. 

100 Tbid., pp. 139-40. 

101 Preusschen, p. 187. 

102 Charles, II, p. 150. 

103 Thid., p. 187. 

104 Nedarim 320. 

105 Wayyikra rabba 14. 

106 Pesikta 1b; Bammidbar rabba 13; ef. Weber, Juedische Theologie, p. 224. 

107 Tal. jerushalmi, tr. Shabbath II, 3; Pesikta 37a, 34a. 

108 Ber. rabba c. 25; ef. 19 et al. 

109 Thid. 11. 

110 Ta]. jerushalmi, tr. Shabbath 1I, 3, ef. Pesikta 37a, I01a. 

111 Ber. rabba 8. 

112 Targ. jerushalmi I, ad Gen. 1, 27. 


113 Ber. rabba 8, the “golem.” 
156 


THE ANTHROPOS IN JEWISH THOUGHT 


In the Zohar and the cabalistic writings these speculations 
find their last echo. The difficulty of distinguishing between 
Palestinian and Philonic tradition in the description of its Adam 
Kadmon,!!4 bids us refrain from following the development to 
its final conclusion. We turn, therefore, to the question con- 
cerning its ultimate origin: What may the forces have been 
that produced side by side with the traditional pessimistic inter- 
pretation of man’s beginning, the picture of a superior protoplast? 
A distinction will probably need to be made between the factors 
operative in the canonical and the post-canonical periods re- 
spectively, partly because of the differences in religious and intel- 
lectual horizon, and partly because of the necessity of accounting 
for the sudden bound into preéminence taken by the newer inter- 
pretation in the later period. 

What the priestly writers thought about the protoplast can 
be explained with satisfaction as the result of the importance 
attached since the exile to Yahwe as the creator. What Yahwe 
created ‘‘was good.’”’ Hence man, though he came to grief and 
brought grief to others must have been created in a higher state 
and for other ends. 

Those who contend that Ezekiel was acquainted with a divine 
protoplast dwelling on the mountain of God,!!> might point to 
the Barbelognostic Adamas and the celestial mountain Harmozel 
on which he lived as a parallel to their rendering of Ezekiel’s 
the prophecy.!!® But even though the parallel were exact, the 
ultimate source of the conception could scarcely be Iran and 
the Anthropos, for the prophecy against Tyre antedates the days 
when the Persian religion became a factor in the Fertile Crescent, 
and the mountain of God, together with the regal splendor of 
the protoplast who dwells there, recall the Babylonian-Sumerian 
ideas of divinity and celestial existence rather than the Persian. !!“ 

To account for the character and prominence of the superior 


114 Karppe, Etudes sur les Origines et la Nature du Zohar (1901), pp. 431-4. 
115 Cf. Gunkel, Genesis, 3rd ed., p. 35, but ef. Book of Enoch, 24, 2. 
116 Trenaeus I, 29, 3; cf. above p. 42, n. 31. 
117 Jeremias, Handb. d. altor. Geisteskultur (1913), pp. 53-7, Bousset-Gress- 
mann, p. 489. 
157 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


Adam in the period of post-canonical Judaism is more difficult. 
Of those influences that first moulded his form in earlier days, 
some probably continued to be effective. Though Ezekiel’s 
sentiments find little response, ! 1° the ideas of the priestly writers 
were now the dominant forces in Jewish religious life. The inclu- 
sion of the West in the cultural horizon of Palestine bids us allow, 
too, for the influence of the optimistic interpretation of human 
existence current in Greek circles. But while these factors help 
us to understand and explain certain of the characteristics ascribed 
to the superior protoplast, his wisdom, perfection and beauty, 
they fall short of accounting for all of his traits and for the genuine 
interest suddenly attaching to him. 

The difficulty is not solved by supposing that the ever-present 
‘“‘Lust zum Fabulieren” had fortuitously seized upon the proto- 
plast as an excellent subject of fictional elaboration. It seems to 
call rather for the presence of a cognate figure affecting and help- 
ing to transform the character of the first man, and for the ascrip- 
tion of some ulterior significance to his person. 

To gain an opinion concerning the identity of the figure in 
question we must concern ourselves with the more difficult of the 
traits characterizing the celestial Adam. Among them none 
recurs with greater consistency than his description in terms of 
“Light.” Now “Light” is used metaphorically in connection 
with Yahwe as early as the Book of Isaiah and the post-exilic 
portion of the Psalter.1!9 It remained, however, for the late 
apocalypses to give the term preéminence and to use it as the 
expression of the nature and being of God, the angels and the 
blessed.12° This newer significance, with which it is employed, 
too, where attached to the protoplast, appears to require particular 
motivation. It is but natural to think of its being inspired directly 
or indirectly by Iranian tradition, for Light is here one of the 
current expressions of the nature and essence of deity. !?'- 


118 Pesikta 37a; cf. Weber, Jued. Theol., p. 215. 
9 Tsqaiah 2, 5; Ps. 104, 2. 
120 Dan. 11, 2, and for Enoch the references in Volz, Jued. Eschat., pp. 
328-9, 358. 
121 Bertholet, Bib. Theol., pp. 462-3; ef. Gressmann, Ursprung, pp. 343-7. 
158 


THE ANTHROPOS IN JEWISH THOUGHT 


It is a further peculiarity of the celestial Adam that, even 
where we are told of his lapse and consequent death at the end of 
a thousand years, he functions really as a protagonist of God and 
the race in their common struggle against the power of Satan, and 
that, keeping his life unsullied, he is able to hand down to his 
descendents the model of a godly life. This conception stands in 
intimate connection with the dualistic trend that was making 
itself felt in the thought of later Judaism. Now this dualistic 
impress, noticeable particularly in the importance attached in the 
period of the apocrypha to Satan and to the kingdom of darkness 
in its opposition to the Kingdom of God, is hardly typical of 
Hebrew ideas. It is usually said to be the result of Iranian influ- 
ence.!?2 Thus two important particulars point to Iran as the 
ultimate home for such phenomena as characterise the celestial 
Adam. 

Gayomart, who therefore again furnishes the point of com- 
parison, might indeed have served as the figure that aided the 
transformation of the Biblical protoplast. He belongs, in the 
first place, to the spiritual creation of Ahura Mazda, a creation 
fashioned in the sphere of “endless light,’’!?% and constantly 
described as ‘‘light” or ‘“‘shining.’”’!?4 When created, we are 
told, he was brilliant and white, !2° brilliant, in fact, as the sun.176 
Even at the end of the world, one half of the sun’s light will be 
radiated upon him, while the other half will serve the rest of 
humanity.!?’ In the second place, Gayomart, as we have seen, 
plays an important part in the conflict of Ahriman with Ormuzd. 
The coming of the tempter to Gayomart is the climax of the first 
phase in the struggle between opposing forces.!28 The death of 
the prototype, ensuing from the conflict, is not the result of his 
submission to the temptations with which he is confronted. He 


122 Bousset-Gressmann, p. 515, E. Meyer, Ursprung, II, pp. 95-120. 
123 Bundahishn 1, 2. 
1247, H. Gray, Ency. Rel. and Ethies, art. Light and Darkness (Iranian). 
125 Bundahishn 24, 1. 
126 Zad Sparam 10, 3. 
127 Bundahishn 30, 9. 
128 Thid., 3, 12-19, Zad Sparam 4, 3. 
159 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


is till the last a doer of good works.!?% The pure propitious 
liturgy which he spoke aided him:!39 Through him, however, 
the outlook for humanity’s future is assured, for all men are to be 
of his race, and have been furnished in advance by him with the 
example of good works and the command to perform them.!#1 
Thus the faithful of the later generations revere his homonym, 
the “‘fravashi of Gaya-maretan, the righteous.” !3 

The similarity between the Iranian prototype and the celestial 
Adam may extend still further. Even as Adam is said to go from 
light to darkness at his fall, so Gayomart is enshrouded in darkness 
at the coming of the tempter.!?3 The bisexuality ascribed to 
Adam is not remote from the Iranian protoplasts.‘%* Even 
the garment of light which Adam is clothed quite in contrast to the 
Biblical conception of his nakedness, may together with the 
garments ascribed to the blessed, be derived from Iran.!?° Finally 
the immense, world-encompassing size ascribed to the protoplast 
may be an echo of Gayomart’s macrocosmic importance.!*6 

Should the character of the celestial Adam have truly been 
moulded in these respects by the figure of Gayomart, as it was 
carried westward in the form of the Anthropos, a number of 
phenomena in Jewish, Christian and Gnostic traditions would 
become intelligible. We should be able to understand, in the 
first place, why the superior protoplast begins to attain pre- 
eminence in the second pre-Christian century. That is the time 
when the Anthropos as Bar Nasha, too, makes his first appearance. 
In the second place it might supply the necessary basis for the 
origin of the Adam-Christ speculation. 

At first glance it appears as though there can be no connection 
between the Adam-Christ speculation and the common origin of 


~ 129 Zad Sparam 4, 6. 
130 Thid., 10, 1. 
131 Bundahishn 3, 23. 
132 Yasna 13, 7 et al., Dinkard 3, 35. 
133 Bundahishn 3, 20. 
134 Cf. above, p. 107. . 
138 Cf. Enoch 62, 16; cf. above, p. 136, and note of Beer in Kautzsch, 
Apokryphen, vol. 2. and Reitzenstein, IE, p. 147. 
136 Zad Sparam 10, 2. 
160 


THE ANTHROPOS IN JEWISH THOUGHT 


celestial Adam and Bar Nasha. Neither the Adam Literature nor 
the apocalypses in which the Bar Nasha occurs show any acquaint- 
ance with this speculation. First and last man appear together 
for the first time in the letters of Paul.13” But Paul, it is quite 
certain, was not presenting to his readers a new theologoumenon. 
He introduces the Adam-Christ speculation as though it were 
traditional.'38 If traditional it belongs undoubtedly to his 
Jewish heritage. Paul thus leads us back to Judaism, and in our 
sources for the religious life of the immediately pre-Christian 
centuries the conception to which he gave utterance can again be 
found. In the Testament of Levi the Messiah’s activities are 
described in part as follows: 


And he shall open the gates of paradise 

And shall remove the threatening sword against Adam, 

And he shall give to the saints to eat from the tree of life, 

And the spirit of holiness shall be on them. 

And Beliar shall be bound by him 

And he shall give power to his children to tread upon the evil spirits. !*? 


That paradisiacal conditions are to obtain at the coming of the 
Messiah, is a thought already expressed by Isaiah.14® But the 
prophecy here takes a new form. The Messiah now reénacts the 
life of Adam in a reversed sequence of events, each event having 
a significance opposed to that originally connected with it. That 
actually presupposes a contraposition of protoplast and Messiah 
identical with the one to which Paul gave utterance. 

To ascribe the origin of such a connection between first and 
last man, to the common origin of the Bar Nasha and the celestial 
Adam may appear unwarranted, and that for two reasons, first, 
because the relation of the two figures is antithetical rather than 
complementary and thus draws upon the older pessimistic view of 
Adam, secondly because the Messiah in this case is not the Bar 
Nasha. 


137 Romans 5, 12-14; 1. Cor. 15, 45-7. 
138 Lietzmann, notes on the passages above, in Lietzmann’s Handbuch, 
vol. III (1913). 
139 Testament of Levi, 18, cf. Bousset-Gressmann, pp. 260-1. 
140 Isaiah 11, 6-8. 
161 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


Neither of these reasons has decisive force, because, if we 
mistake not, there is evidence also of a connection between first 
and last man, in which both the Bar Nasha and the celestial 
Adam play a part. The evidence is a bit awkward and difficult, 
yet by no means negligible. It is found in Enoch’s elevation to 
the position and role of Bar Nasha. 

The 71st chapter of the Book of Enoch in which this elevation 
is recorded, has for some time been a matter of dispute. Charles, 
in twice editing the book, has voiced the opinion that the sense 
which the chapter at present conveys is due to the loss of a refer- 
ence to the Son of Man (between vss. 13 and 14), and a scribe’s 
substituting a pronoun of the second person for one of the third, 
to the number of eight times.!4! Textual conditions in the Book 
of Enoch being what they are, it must be admitted that such a 
change could possibly have occurred. And yet, it must also be 
admitted, that if the chapter makes sense in its present form, the 
antecedent probability is for an unvitiated text. 

What has argued against the originality of the passage more 
than anything else, is the nature of the sentiments conveyed. 
There is at first glance no possible basis for the identification of 
Enoch and Bar Nasha. A number of scholars have pointed to 
the prominence which Enoch enjoys in other texts, as a religious 
personality, as the author of science and the agent of revelation, 
and on this basis they have sought to defend the originality of the 
present reading.!42 While this seems to be a step in the right 
direction, it fails to clinch the matter. A few words may serve 
to show how the relation of Anthropos and celestial Adam will 
clarify the difficulty. 

The rise to prominence which the celestial Adam experienced 
in the apocryphal period of Jewish religious literature, is not an 
isolated phenomenon. Together with him, his descendents to the 
days of Noah suddenly take on new significance. Pseudepigrapha 
appear under the names of Seth, Enoch, and Noah. On the 
borders of Jewish lands arise many sects, Adamite, Sethite, Ophite, 


141 Cf. the note on Book of Enoch 71, 14-17 in Charles, Apocrypha, vol. IT. 
142So Beer, in Kautzsch, Apokryphen, vol. II in note on Enoch 71, 24, 
and Bousset-Gressmann, pp. 353-4. 
162 


THE ANTHROPOS IN JEWISH THOUGHT 


Melchisidecian, which give great prominence to the antediluvians. 
Abel, Seth and Anosh find a home in Mandean lore in the capaci- 
ties of prophets. Mani includes Adam, Seth and Noah in his 
catalogue of the great teachers of the world. The development 
to which these facts testify is by no means late. It goes back, 
as the apocalypses of Enoch and Noah, and random references in 
other non-canonical books show, to at least the very beginning of 
the first pre-Christian century. But why should all these ante- 
diluvians suddenly become inspired prophets, men in whose names 
the occult may be revealed? In the case of Enoch there is an 
element of predisposition, but the majority, certainly, have no 
inherent capacity for their role. There is but one reason that 
adequately explains the development. It is through the change 
in the character of the protoplast that they have taken on a new 
form. The glamor surrounding the celestial Adam has passed 
over to those who are his immediate offspring, and who, through 
their association with him during his life of one thousand years, ! *# 
may well be thought to have learned his wisdom and shared his 
divinity. Enoch’s elevation to the office of Bar Nasha is thus 
but another expression of the connection between Adam and 
Messiah. This time it is not merely that the Christ reénacts the 
role of Adam. The Messiah is here in his person an Adamite. 

If our interpretation is correct, the text of Enoch chapter 71 is 
irreproachable, because there is nothing impossible in the senti- 
ments which it conveys. Simultaneously, however, we gain from 
the Book of Enoch evidence for an interrelation of first and second 
man that is not antithetical in kind. It is similar to that found in 
the ‘“Adamsschriften,” where the mediating person of the glorious 
trinity arises from his throne to make room for Adam at his return 
from the earth. 144 

From the discussion of the elevation of Enoch, the origin of 
part, if not all of the efforts to connect first and last man, should 
be evident. No matter how we may explain the genesis of the 
sentiments of Paul and the Testament of Levi, Enoch has as its 


143 This conception appears very early; cf. Jubilees 4, 30. 
144 Preusschen, p. 187. 
163 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


prerequisite a unity of the persons of the celestial Adam and Bar 
Nasha such as can have arisen only on the basis of their common 
origin in the Anthropos figure. 

From the preceding discussion we have gained the impression 
that the Anthropos speculation can be employed to furnish an 
eminently satisfactory explanation of the origin of the Jewish Bar 
Nasha, of the character of the celestial Adam and of the latter’s 
association with the Messiah. Since this speculation can be 
shown to have existed in an early proto-Gnostic form in Meso- 
potamia and since there was frequent intercourse between the 
communities, Jewish and Gentile, of Mesopotamia and Palestine, 
there is no improbability attaching to the use of the Anthropos as 
a means of clarifying the development of these elements of later 
Jewish thought. 

The establishment of such a connection between Anthropos 
tradition and Jewish religious belief, moreover, furnishes a means 
of testing our interpretation of the Gnostic records. In the first 
place, we gain a corroboration of the contention that in his proto- 
Gnostic form the Anthropos was primarily a primordial champion, 
adapted in part to the figure of Marduk, and the celestial father- 
prototype of humanity. Secondly we are able to confirm our 
suspicion that the soteriological manifestation of the Anthropos is 
a late element of the tradition, for had it played a part in determi- 
ning his proto-Gnostic character, it, and not the Anthropos’ capa- 
city of primordial champion, would have moulded the figure of the 
Bar Nasha. The Jewish sources show no knowledge of a connection 
between Anthropos and a divine element in human nature, but 
we are not at liberty to suppose that this, their silence, represents 
a proof of its absence in the early form of the Anthropos specula- 
tion, since, contrary to the matter of the soteriological manifesta- 
tion, it was not amenable to Jewish ideas in general. None the 
less, the silence of the records would serve to support our view of 
the relation of Anthropos and Soul. Finally the Adam-Christ 
speculation, as developed in Judaism, and particularly the impor- 
tance attached to the Adamites furnishes a basis for the origin in 
Jewish and Christian circles for ideas approximating the later 
syncretistic Anthropos Theology, but not directly related to it, 

164 


THE ANTHROPOS IN JEWISH THOUGHT 


and a possible basis for the construction of the relation between 
Anthropos and Soter. 

The growth of the Anthropos speculation is as much indebted 
to Jewish religious thought as Jewish ideas are indebted to the 
Anthropos tradition. 


165 


CHAPTER VII 


THE ANTHROPOS AND THE NEW TESTAMENT SON OF MAN 


Is the Anthropos whom we have followed through Gnostic 
speculation and Jewish apocalyptic capable of throwing new light 
upon the problem of the New Testament Son of Man? This is 
the last of the questions to which we must seek an answer. The 
answer will be found by determining whether the Anthropos as he 
existed outside of Judaism can be made to account for the excess 
in ideas and associations which the New Testament Son of Man 
and Jesus as Son of Man manifest over and above the measure of 
those connected with the ‘‘man-like one” of the apocalypses. 

In three distinct spheres of New Testament tradition scholars 
have recently thought they perceived the influence of the pagan 
Anthropos, in the Fourth Gospel, in the Pauline Theology and in 
the Synoptic Gospels. To the contentions advanced with respect 
to the first and second of these spheres it is a necessary presupposi- 
tion that the Anthropos was familiar to the religious communities 
of Syria in the first Christian century, to the third that he was 
simultaneously known directly to sects in intimate contact with 
the people of Judea and Galilee. Our study of the Anthropos 
tradition has shown that in the first two cases the presupposition 
is justifiable and does not lack corroboration, for the Anthropos 
was almost certainly in Syria before the end of the first century. 
In the third case we cannot consider the presupposition entirely 
impossible, since we granted the possibility of a relation between 
the Anthropos and Daniel’s ‘‘man-like one,’’ but we must consider 
it less probable by reason of our view that the Mandean Theology 
in its earliest form lacked the contact with the Anthropos tradition. 
It will be necessary to enter upon a discussion of the various ele- 
ments of New Testament tradition involved in the controversy 

166 


THE ANTHROPOS AND THE NEW TESTAMENT SON OF MAN 


and to seek from the analysis of the material itself a verdict to the 
question at issue. 


1. The name Son of Man is employed or alluded to in the 
Fourth Gospel some twelve or thirteen times. It designates 
Jesus as the complete revelation of the Godhead, the ever-present, 
the one dependent upon the Father, the giver of life, the pre- 
existent in heaven, the one who ascends to heaven, the judge, the 
one glorified on earth, the Messiah, the incarnate, the one who 
was crucified and died, the one exalted at death, the Savior 
and object of faith.! 

Two facts must be emphasized in this connection. The first 
is that the Johannine use of Son of Man is rooted in the Synoptic 
tradition. Both traditions stress the Messianic character, suffer- 
ing, death and glorification of the Son of Man, and what is more, 
similarly divide their attention between his transcendent or 
heavenly and immanent or earthly relations. The second fact to 
be noted is that it is a long step forward from the original Synoptic 
position to that stage of the tradition represented by the Fourth 
Gospel. This is evident from the way in which the judicial 
capacity of the Son of Man is minimized, and from the emphasis 
which is placed upon his transcendent nature and origin, his rela- 
tions to the Godhead and his place in the life of the believer as an 
object of faith. 

The question which we must ask ourselves is whether this 
change has been brought about by influence exerted by the pagan 
Anthropos conception? 

11. The revelation of God, 1, 51; 3, 138; 6, 27; 8, 28; (12, 34); 18, 31. 

2. Ever present, 6, 27; 6, 53. 

3. Dependent upon the Father, 5, 27; 6, 27; 8, 28. 

4. Giver of Life, 3, 14; 6, 27; 6, 53. 

5. Preéxistent in heaven, 3, 13; 6, 62. 

6. Ascends to heaven, 3, 13; 6, 62; 8, 28. 

7. Judge, 5, 27 (implied). 

8. Glorified on earth, 12, 23; 13, 31. 

9. Messiah, 1, 51; 9, 35; 12, 34. 

10. Incarnate, 3, 13; 3, 14; 6, 53; 6, 62; (9, 35); 12, 23; 13, 31. 

11. Crucified and died, 3, 14; 8, 28; 12, 23; 13, 31. 

12. Exalted at death, 3, 14; 8, 28; 12, 23; 13, 31. 

13. Savior and object of faith, 8, 28; 9,35; 12, 34. 

167 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


In the second edition of his commentary on John, Bauer has 
recently answered the question in the affirmative. The Johannine 
Son of Man, he says, ‘‘clearly reflects the conception of the 
Heavenly Man as redeemer, a conception which must have enjoyed 
extensive popularity in the time of John and is still visible par- 
ticularly among Gnostics, Mystics of the Hermetic circle, Man- 
deans and Manicheans.’’? 

With this conclusion we find ourselves in disagreement. An 
analysis of the Fourth Gospel shows without shadow of a doubt 
that the ideas associated by the author of this document with the 
name Son of Man are simultaneously employed also in connection 
with the names Son of God, Only-begotten, Logos, Christ and 
Son, and appear as well entirely apart from the use of titular and 
descriptive nomenclature. ? 

If we are to assume that the Son of Man of the Fourth Evangel- 
ist owes his character to the Anthropos it will be necessary to sup- 
pose that the whole Johannine Christology has been influenced 
from this angle, and that so far as the ideas connected with all 
the many designations are concerned, a process of nivellization 
has been in operation, the moving force of which is the Son of 
Man—Anthropos. This conclusion is manifestly erroneous for 
two reasons. In the first place the name Son of Man is of less 
importance in the Fourth Gospel than the names Son, Son of God 
and Christ, and is restricted in its use to fewer passages than in 
any of the Synoptic Gospels where it actually has determining 
force. In the second place it is evident that the ideas associated 
with the Johannine Son of Man are connected with the Christ 
of the Odes of Solomon by a writer who stands in a line with 
Ignatius and Barnabas in their use of Son of Man, who in other 
words has not the slightest inkling of its original and derived 
significance and who, therefore, scarcely employs the desig- 
nation. * 


2 Lietzmann, Handbuch zum N.T. 2nd ed., pt. 6 (1925), p. 40. 

’ Cf. Holtzmann, Neutestamentliche Theologie, vol. II, pp. 444-508. 

4 The name “‘Son of Man’”’ is applied to the Messiah only in Ode 36, 3 and 
is there taken as a term expressive of Jesus’ humanity; cf. Ignatius, Ephesians 
20, 2. Comparison between the Christology of the Odes and that connected 

168 


THE ANTHROPOS AND THE NEW TESTAMENT SON OF MAN 


If then the designation Son of Man can boast of no particular 
prominence in the Fourth Gospel, and if the ideas associated with 
the Son of Man by the Fourth Evangelist are to be found in the 
Christology of a cognate document where the name has lost all its 
pristine significance, it would seem fairly certain that the forces 
which produced the Johannine Christ were not connected with or 
related to the name Son of Man. 

To this conclusion there will be one great objection. It 
transfers the issue to the Odes of Solomon without an attempt to 
solve it, and disregards the fact that much light has recently 
been shed on the problems of the Fourth Gospel by comparison 
with the Mandaic Liturgies and the Odes, a comparison that is 
said to bring the Odes directly into line with the Anthropos tradi- 
tion. In the present context we can state our answer to this 
objection with but a few words. We believe that the comparison 
_ between the Fourth Gospel, the Odes and the Mandaic Liturgies 
is a step in the right direction, but that it is incorrect to assume 
that that which connects the three documents is the Anthropos 
Theology. In Mandean theology there are three essential ele- 
ments, Jewish speculation, Anthropos Theology and Life Theo- 
logy.®° The tie that binds the Mandean Documents to the Odes 
and the Fourth Gospel is the last of these,—the Life Theology. 


in the Fourth Gospel with the name Son of Man is afforded by the following 
list, the sequence of items being that of the list of note 1. 
1. Ode 7, 12; 36, 4-6; 41, 13. 
8,21; 42, 4. 
22. 


22,1. 
33, 11. The Odist does not distinguish between the person of Wisdom 
and the person of Christ. 

8. 17, 7b. 

9. 9, 3; 29, 6. 

10. 7, 12; 28, 8-18. 

11. 28, 8-18; 42, 3-17. Christ dies but does not remain dead. 
Igri nd; 22, 1; 38, 10; 41, 12. 
13. 15, 6; 17, 14; 39, 13. 
5 Cf. above, p. 73. 


2. 
3. 
4, 
5. 41, 9. 
6, 
ze 


169 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


This contention, which cannot be substantiated further at this 
point, we hope to be able to demonstrate at some later occasion. 
Suffice it to say that we cannot see either in the Fourth Gospel 
or in its associations evidence that its Son of Man has been trans- 
formed by the influence of the Anthropos. 

A further attempt to connect the Anthropos Theology with 
the Fourth Gospel has recently been made by Schaeder in connec- 
tion with the reconstruction of the Aramaic original of the famous 
Prologue of John. With the efforts of Burney,® Montgomery, ’ 
Bultmann® and Schaeder to determine the Aramaic original of 
portions of the Fourth Gospel, particularly the Prologue, we find 
ourselves in complete sympathy. Schaeder, with whom we are 
exclusively concerned at present, follows the lead of both Burney 
and Bultmann in supposing that the Prologue as we have it to-day 
is a hymn or ode adapted by the author of the Gospel by transla- 
tion and by the addition of prose elements to serve as the introduc- 
tion to his work. Schaeder’s hypothesis differs from the rest in 
the contention that the original hymn was one which celebrated 
the identity of the heavenly messenger Anosh (of Mandean fame) 
with the divine Memra. The Anosh of this hymn the disciples of 
the Baptist connected with John as in the Mandean Book of 
John. The Fourth Evangelist reflects their point of view when 
he says that ‘‘the ‘man’ sent from God was John,” but differs 
from them when he distinguishes between Memra and ‘‘man’”’ 
and uses this distinction to minimize the importance of the Bap- 
tist.? If tenable this hypothesis would prove the literary depen- 
dence of a Christian writer upon a document coming from circles 
identified with the Anthropos Theology. Schaeder’s contention 
hinges upon the assertion that in the two instances, verses 6 and 9 
where the Fourth Evangelist uses dv@pw7os, he read in the Aramaic 
original #38 and that this “38 he interpreted as a form of W3X, 
either by reason of his Hebraic heritage or because the form was 
actually current in his circles as it was in Nabatean communities. !° 


8 The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel, 1922. 
7 The Origin of the Gospel according to St. John, Philadelphia, 1923. 
8 Kucharisterion, Festschrift fiir H. Gunkel, pt. 2 (1923), pp. 1-26. 
® Reitzenstein u. Schaeder, Studien, pp. 306-41. 
0 Tbid., p. 326. 

170 


THE ANTHROPOS AND THE NEW TESTAMENT SON OF MAN 


In dealing with Schaeder’s hypothesis we shall endeavor to do no 
more than to show that the assertion upon which it hinges is not 
essential or necessary to the reconstruction or interpretation of 
the Prologue. 

We are then concerned particularly with vss. 6a and 9. Here 
the Greek text reads: 


? / » b) / ‘\ a 
Eyéveto avOpwros amectadpevos mapa Geov 
9 Cal 

Hv 70 $@s 7 GAnOwov, 0 dwtile wavra 


¥ > c > \ , 
dvOpwrov épxopevov eis TOV KOTpPOV. 


The words intervening between these two sentences Schaeder 
considers a prose addition of the Evangelist, somewhat after the 
analogy of Burney.!! What remains he translates into a stanza 
of three lines with three beats to the line, as follows: 


xnox 1D Tw) WIN NIN 
$5 ADT NDWIDT ND NI 
xodya one woN 


In our analysis it will be best to begin with Schaeder’s recon- 
struction of vs. 9. What he has done is evident. He has placed. 
the cesura after zdvra and construed dvOpwrov with épyopevor. 
_ In so doing he has preserved the rhythm of the earlier portion of 
hymn, has rescued the passage from the obscurity of the prose 
addition to which Burney had consigned it and found an Aramaic 
basis for defending the construction which earlier exegetes placed 
upon the difficult Greek sentence of John. This, together with 
the fact that the Mandean Anosh ‘‘comes into the world,” and 
that the Evangelist has just been minimizing the importance of 
the Baptist whom the Mandeans identified with Anosh, forms an 
immediate justification for the supposition that what the Evange- 
list translated dv6pw7os actually read W138 not WIN. 

While we are willing to agree to much of Schaeder’s construc- 
tion, to the idea that the sentence represents a couplet of the 
original hymn, and that the épxouevov xrA. should be preserved, we 
cannot accept either his division of the sentence or the introduc- 


4 The Aramaic Origin, etc., p. 41. 
it 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


tion of #38 as the only feasible rendering of the original Aramaic. 
It is equally possible, we believe, that the Aramaic couplet origi- 
nally read: 


NOVADT ND NIA 
xodya one 55 99204 


In this rendering we have followed both Burney and Schaeder 
in connecting épyopuevov eis Tov kdopov with Talmudic sooyd x2 
equivalent to Aramaic sxobyn xnx.  Schaeder has pointed 
out the fact that Burney’s translation soya nx wx 53 is 
pleonastic.!2 That is correct, for the Talmudic idiom by itself 
can signify “man.’’ We must therefore either follow Schaeder 
and substitute wx, or omit the equivalent of dy@pwrov and 
show why the translator introduced this element into the Greek 
translation. Of the two, the latter is the simpler. Connected 
with 53, the words xodya ‘nx can signify either “all men” or 
‘‘all created things.”’?!? In the present context the sense ‘‘all 
men” is required. For the Evangelist to have translated them 
with qwrile. rdvta épyopevov eis xrA, would have meant to leave 
the sense of the phrase ambiguous, for then rdvra could have 
been construed as a neuter plural, and épxomevov could have 
been connected with ¢és. To the exegetes of to-day the sent- 
ence even with the word dv6pwrov presents these possibilities of 
interpretation. The scholars of the ancient Church, who were 
more closely connected with the living speech of the Greek 
New Testament, recognized in the dv6pwrov a burdening element 
tying wavra and épxdpevov together and interpreted accordingly. 
By inserting dvépwrov in the passage, the writer of the Fourth 
Gospel did as much as he could, and for his day sufficient, to 
convey to his readers the actual sense of what he was trans- 
lating without going too far afield from the idiom of the original 
hymn. Of interpretative additions such as the dy@pwrov then 
represents, Schaeder makes the Evangelist quite capable in con- 
nection with his discussion of vss. 3-4 of the Prologue. 


12 Studien, p. 328. 
13 Strack-Billerbeck, Kommentar z. N.T. aus Talmud u. Midrasch, vol. 2 
(1924), p. 358. 
172 


THE ANTHROPOS AND THE NEW TESTAMENT SON OF MAN 


While it is possible to exclude an equivalent of dvOpwros 
‘ from the Aramaic original of vs. 9, it is not possible to do so in 
vs. 6. Here the word “‘man’”’ is rooted in the text. But, while 
we are willing to follow Schaeder in his contention that in translat- 
ing vs. 6 Burney’s 83) is less acceptable than w2x,!4 we cannot 
agree even here that “28 must be preferred to w3x, 

Our first objection is a matter of general considerations. The 
main theme of the hymn of the Prologue is not essentially Mandaic. 
The Logos played no important part in Mandaic theology. True, 
Anosh is given the cognomen Malala, Word; but, as we have seen, 
this signifies little more than that he was one of the powers con- 
nected with the revelation of truth. To connect Anosh with the 
Logos in the sense in which that word is used in the Prologue 
requires special motivation. If Anosh were actually introduced 
in vs. 6, it would require, moreover, that he remain the subject of 
all that was said in the original hymn up to vs. 14. That would 
make Anosh the creator of the world and one who was rejected 
by his adherents. There is nothing in the Mandean description 
of Anosh or the Baptist to warrant his being regarded in this way. 

The second objection is that Schaeder’s reconstruction is 
reasonably intelligible even if we preserve the wx which the 
Greek text demands. It might in this event be translated “and 
he became a man (namely), one sent from God.’ The reference 
would be to the Logos, of whom it might well be said that the 
world was made by him and that he was rejected by his own. 
The thought of vs. 6 would be parallel to that of vs. 14 and the 
words ‘‘the Logos became flesh,” a thought which would neces- 
sarily require expression before vss. 9 and 11. In addition, it 
would accord with the fact that to the Fourth Evangelist Jesus is 
“‘the one sent from God” par excellence. In the face of the unity 
which would thus be established in the hymn as a whole, it would 
not be difficult to defend the repetition of the fact of the Logos’ 
incarnation. 

It will not be profitable to follow the ramifications of the dis- 
cussions connected with the reconstruction of the Aramaic original 
of the Prologue any further. Suffice it to say that we find no 

14 Aramaic Origin, p. 41. 

173 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


cogency in the reasoning that would introduce Anosh into that 
original and no direct contact between this part of the Fourth 
Gospel and the Anthropos tradition. 

2. Leaving the world of the Fourth Gospel we come now to 
Paul, and to the efforts that have been made to connect elements 
of his thought with Anthropos speculation. The name Son of 
Man was never employed by Paul, at least not in the letters that 
have come down to us. That does not signify that the name was 
not applied to Jesus in his day or that he was unfamiliar with it, 
as Schmiedel was the first to demonstrate.1° Neither does it set 
aside the question whether Paul was familiar with the Anthropos 
theology and whether it affected his views. 

The antecedent probability that he was influenced from this 
angle is greater in the case of Paul than in the case of any other 
writer of the New Testament. In the first place, the tradition of 
which he is the classical exponent has no limited horizon, like that 
of the Gospels, but one that is in many of its elements worid-wide. 
It was formulated first by Hellenized Jews in Jerusalem, developed 
in Syria and Arabia and enriched in its contact with a religious 
genius of the first rank, a man with a universal outlook. In the 
second place, the Pauline Theology embraces as one of its charac- 
teristic and universal elements a conception which plays an impor- 
tant part in the later Anthropos Theology. This is none other 
than the Pauline idea of the Spirit. It is true that Paul’s views 
on the Spirit were not gained apart from the impression created 
by the Old Testament tradition and early Christian experience, 
but their formulation and a large number of the metaphors 
employed in their presentation have their origin in a theology 
identical with or similar to that found in documents of the Mystery 
Religions such as the Mithraic Ritual and the Corpus Hermeticum. 

If it could be shown that the conception of the Spirit as it 
existed in these Oriental cults was of Iranian origin, and that the 
idea of a divine pneumatic or psychic element indwelling in man 
formed an essential part of the Anthropos tradition, Paul’s view 
of the Spirit might be used as an argument in favor of his knowledge 
of the Anthropos tradition. Since this is not as yet apparent, we 

15 Prot. Monatshefte, 1898, pp. 291-308. 

174 


THE ANTHROPOS AND THE NEW TESTAMENT SON OF MAN 


must base our judgment in the matter entirely upon the two 
statements of Paul regarding the “inner man” and regarding 
Christ as the “spiritual” or ‘‘heavenly man.” 

Paul places Adam and Christ into juxtaposition in two distinct 
ways. In one instance, in Romans 5, they are contrasted by 
reason of the nature and result of their actions. Adam remains 
Adam, Christ remains Christ, the fact of the incarnation of Christ 
plays but a subsidiary part. Since the contrast is determined by 
Adam’s sin and fall from grace on the one hand and Christ’s 
-sinlessness and grace on the other, there can be no question of the 
direct influence of Anthropos Theology at this point. Quite on 
the contrary, it is evident that Paul is here dependent upon 
Jewish speculation such as that found in the Testament of Levi, 
whatever its origin may have been. !® 

In the second instance, 1. Cor. 15, 44-9, the juxtaposition is 
rooted in a similarity between the natures of Adam and Christ; 
for only if both are in a real sense beings of the human type can 
the verses in question become a proof of the introductory conten- 
tion that there are two kinds of human bodies, psychic and pneu- 
matic. Moreover, this similarity cannot be temporary, a result 
of the incarnation, for then there would be no guarantee of the 
permanence of the believer’s spiritual body, but must be perma- 
nent. Christ is therefore in an absolute sense a type of man, a 
conception which is one step in advance of the Adam-Christ spec- 
ulation underlying Enoch c. 71, and which, therefore, raises the 
question of the influence of the Anthropos Theology once more. 

The inquiry into the origin of this view of Christ turns about 
the discussion of the proof-text quoted by Paul with the words: 
“and so it is written, the first man, Adam, was made a living 
soul, 'the last Adam a life-giving spirit.’”” The quotation is evi- 
dently in the nature of a Targum. Its first half represents the 
text of Gen. 2, 7 to which the words “‘first”’ and “Adam” have 
been added.!? Its second part is scriptural only in a relative 


16 We are inclined to consider the Adam-Christ speculation of the Clemen- 
tine Literature a product of this line of thought and have therefore omitted 
it from the discussion of the Anthropos tradition in which it was first included 
by Bousset, HP, pp. 171-5. 

17 Three steps are involved in the genesis of the expression ‘‘the first man 

175 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


sense, since it is an expression not of any one Biblical passage but 
of the truth which the exegete sees behind the words of Scripture. 

It is customary and natural at once to think of Philo in connec- 
tion with the origin of this interpretation. Philo saw in the first 
two chapters of Genesis two accounts not of the same but of 
different creations. _The first creation was that of the world of 
ideas, the second that of the physical cosmos. There are then, 
as we have seen, two ‘“‘men” in Philo’s theology, the one an idea 
or type, the other its material counterpart. This being the case 
it has been thought likely that the basis of the second portion of 
Paul’s Targum is the Hellenistic, Philonic exegesis of Genesis 
1, 27.18 Paul’s speculation concerning the heavenly man would 
then require for its origin only the subsequent identification of 
the ‘“‘man of the idea”’ with the Messiah and would owe its charac- 
ter to current metaphysics. 

There are a number of difficulties in the way of this solution 
of the problem. In the first place it is not certain whether Paul 
would have regarded a metaphysical postulate as something “‘ real”’ 
in the sense in which he regarded the preéxistent man as real. 
Furthermore, Paul employs Genesis 1 at other occasions as the 
account of the creation of the present visible cosmos. Finally 
Christ is to him in no sense an element of creation. He is not 
made but is the instrumentality of creation. !° 

Because of these difficulties it seems preferable to suppose that 
not Philo directly but some third source upon which Philo too is 
dependent forms the basis of the Pauline speculation. In the last 
analysis this third element is for Reitzenstein the Anthropos 
Theology. Here we have undoubtedly such a preéxistent, pneu- 
matic, non-metaphysical Man at once distinct from the protoplast 
and connected by late writers with the saviors. 


Adam”’ (1) the expression ‘‘man”’ used in the LXX of Gen. 2, 7; (2) its 
rabbinical interpretation “‘the first man” ’adam harishon; (3) Paul’s interpre- 
tation of the rabbinical expression for the benefit of his Corinthian readers, 
“the first man Adam.” Reitzenstein’s constructions are unnecessary; cf. 
Hellenistiche Mysterienreligion, 2. ed., p. 198. 

18 Holtzmann, Ntliche Theologie, vol. II, pp. 85-6. 

19 Thid. 

176 


THE ANTHROPOS AND THE NEW TESTAMENT SON OF MAN 


The analogy is very nearly perfect and must therefore not be 
dismissed lightly. The only reason why it cannot of itself satisfy 
the demands of the passage under discussion lies in the fact that 
Paul’s heavenly man is introduced as a Biblical character. This 
difficulty Reitzenstein has sought to offset by the use of Philonic 
testimony. The Alexandrine philosopher, he contends, was 
dependent in part upon an ancient Jewish tradition in which by 
reason of the influence of the Anthropos Theology a distinction 
was made between the protoplasts of the two Biblical accounts of 
- ereation. This tradition Philo has Platonized in the tract on the 
““Creation.”’ In its original form he presents it in the first book 
of the ‘‘Allegories,’’ where in connection with Gen. 2, 7 he remarks 
“the races of man are twofold, for one is the heavenly man, the ~ 
other the earthly man.’”’?° For Paul to introduce the heavenly 
man, who is essentially the Anthropos, in connection with Gen. 
2, 7 was therefore the natural result of his use of a Jewish tradi- 
tion. He takes care, however, to differentiate his own interpreta- 
tion from its Philonic counterpart when he says “‘not first is that 
which spiritual but that which is natural.” ?! 

Since this construction satisfies the problem of the Pauline 
quotation, since it does not connect Philo directly with the Anthro- 
pos tradition and since we have already admitted that the Anthro- 
pos may have affected the Jewish conception of the protoplast, it 
will not be possible to deny it a certain measure of plausibility. 
But it is by no means satisfactory in all respects. The “heavenly 
man,” even though he is introduced by Philo in connection with 
Gen. 2, 7, remains the ‘‘man according to the image,” a creature 
and hence a being quite distinct from the uncreated Christ.?? 
Furthermore, neither Paul, nor to the best of our knowledge the 
Rabbis of Palestine, differentiated between the creation recorded 
in Genesis 1 and that of Genesis 2. This would seem to make the 
tradition upon which Philo was dependent Alexandrine and thus 
separate it from Paul. 

These difficulties make it necessary to admit that Professor 


20 Allegories, bk. I, §31, ed. Cohn-Wendland. 
217TH, pp. 104-11. 
22 Holtzmann, pp. 85-6. 

177 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


L. Ginzberg has found at least an equally suitable explanation of 
the origin of Paul’s speculation concerning Christ as the “‘heavenly 
man.” He calls attention to a Midrash in the two extant forms 
of which we are told that the “Spirit of God moving upon the 
face of the waters” is the ‘‘spirit of Adam” and the ‘‘spirit of the 
Messiah.”’?% Between the thought of the Midrash and that of 
1. Cor. 15, 44-9 there are two differences. The Midrash speaks 
only of the ‘‘spirit of Adam” and does not absolutely identify the 
“spirit of Adam” with the ‘‘spirit of the Messiah.”’ While these 
differences are not to be overlooked, it is possible to see how, to a 
man of Paul’s type and training, they might have been negligible. 
In the first place, Paul speaks of both the Spirit of Christ and the 
_ pneumatic Christ, as well as of the Spirit which man receives and 
the new, spiritual man, using the two designations applied to each 
almost interchangeably. In the second place all that Paul 
requires for the identification of concepts and figures of Old 
Testament tradition is that they be elements of one ‘“‘row”’ in 
other words orovxeia. 74 

If the “‘spiritual man” of 1. Cor. were actually the preéxistent - 
Spirit of Genesis 1, 2, we could understand how he could be identi- 
fied with the uncreated Christ and how Paul could continue to 
use the account of creation found in Genesis 1 as the record of the 
formation of the present world. That he should refer to this 
‘‘heavenly man” in connection with Genesis 2, 7 would be more 
natural in this case than in the case of the tradition referred to by 
Reitzenstein, since this ‘‘spiritual Adam” is not referred to expli- 
citly in Genesis 1. His reference to the priority of the earthly 
man would then serve merely to clarify the matter of the order of 
their historical appearance. 

Whichever view of the origin of Paul’s “heavenly man” we 
adopt, it will be apparent that there is no reason to suppose that 
Paul was personally influenced by the Anthropos speculation. 
Only if Paul had been attracted to the ‘heavenly man”’ by the- 
existence of cognate speculations in non-Christian circles would 


23 Article ““Adam Kadmon,” Jewish Encyclopedia, quoting the Midrash. 
Gen. R., viii, 1 and Midrash Teh. to Ps. 139, 5. | 
24 Cf. Galatians 4, 21-31. 
178 


THE ANTHROPOS AND THE NEW TESTAMENT SON OF MAN 


that be the case. This is of course possible but neither demon- 
strable nor necessary. Ultimately, it is true, the Jewish tradition 
which Paul in either case employed, has its origin in the Adam 
speculation and in so far as this may have been encouraged by the 
Anthropos tradition we have in the ‘‘heavenly man” an echo of 
the Anthropos. This connection would suffice to explain the cor- 
respondence of the figures. A closer relationship, however, can- 
not be established definitely. 

Leaving Paul’s “‘heavenly man,” we come now to the “inner 
man” and the attempts that have made to connect him with the 
Anthropos. The “inner man” for Paul is that portion of man’s 
natural endowment otherwise referred to by the words ‘“‘reason”’ 
or “I.”25 It is that portion which the divine Spirit vitalizes. 
Doubtless the ‘‘inner man” is an element of the Hellenistic and 
not of the Jewish heritage of Paul. In seeking an analogy in the 
' Hellenistic sphere it was formerly customary to point to the 
expression ‘‘the man within” found in Plato.?® Reitzenstein is 
perfectly correct in maintaining that this analogy is not only too 
remote but also imperfect.2’ The ‘“‘inner man” of the Naasene 
Document and the Mandean Adakas, ‘‘the hidden Adam”’ are 
much closer in every way. That Paul in his use of the expression 
is dependent upon the thought of circles such as these, Reitzen- 
stein has made highly probable. The analysis of the context in 
which the “‘inner man” appears in II Cor. 4, 16, shows intimate 
acquaintance with the concepts and metaphors indigenous to the 
‘“‘Hrlésungsmysterium” of the Gnostic texts.28 The question of 
the relation between Anthropos and “inner man” is therefore 
identical with that concerning the relation between ‘ Erlésungs- 
mysterium”’ or Soul Drama and the Anthropos tradition. We 
have previously found it necessary to question the permanence 
and originality of the relation in which the last mentioned ele- 
ments stand to one another in the Anthropos Theology. That 


2 


25 Reference to the “inner man” is made in Rom. 7, 22; 2. Cor. 4, 16; 
Eph, 3, 16. 
26 Republic, 9, 589A, et al. 
27 HM, p. 205. 
28 Tbid., pp. 205-12. 
179 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


means that there can be no decisive answer regarding the connec- 
tion of ‘inner man” and Anthropos. We must again deal with 
matters of possibility and necessity. The possibility exists if 
Soul Drama and Anthropos tradition met prior to the days of 
Paul. The necessity exists if the genesis of the term “‘inner man” 
requires the presence and existence of a ‘“‘Man” from whom the 
‘inner man”’ has fallen into the sphere of material creation. The 
necessity we must deny, however captivating the explanation of 
the term involved, because, as Plato shows, similar expressions 
could and did arise wherever mysticism and the idea of divided 
personality common to mystical thought played a part. The 
possibility cannot be gainsaid. 


3. Leaving Paul with the feeling that even if he was personally 
acquainted with the person of the Anthropos, it was of little 
importance to the development of his thought, we come finally to 
the Synoptic Gospels. 

According to the documents in question, Jesus applied to 
himself, as his favorite self-designation the name Son of Man. 
He employed it with a threefold connotation, characterizing 
himself thereby as a man among other men, as one who must 
suffer, die and rise again, and as the one who is to appear at the 
consummation with the clouds of heaven in the capacity of judge. 
Those passages where the name is used with the last of these con- 
notations are directly reminiscent of Daniel 7, 13 messianically 
interpreted as in the later Jewish apocalypses. To this extent the 
Synoptic view of Jesus as Son of Man is rooted in Jewish tradition. 
The question with which we are, therefore, concerned is whether 
the origin of the non-apocalyptic connotations and the adoption 
of the name as such have their origin in Jesus’ or the early 
Christians’ acquaintance with the Anthropos tradition. 

It has become increasingly evident to scholars that we see 
Jesus to-day not directly but through the medium of the tradition 
current in the early Christian communities, as that tradition was 
recorded by unknown writers and by evangelists. To some this 
signifies that the use of the name Son of Man as applied to Jesus 
must be credited entirely to the pious reflection of the early 

180 


THE ANTHROPOS AND THE NEW TESTAMENT SON OF MAN 


believers and the editorial activity of the evangelists. The 
claims registered by the name Son of Man are considered too 
brusque to have been advanced by one as reticent as Jesus. Only 
those who believed that God had elevated him to the position of 
Messiah and who expected his return in glory could have spoken 
of him im this sense. 

Those who accept this position, and they are many, will in all 
probability deny the connection of Anthropos and the Synoptic 
Son of Man. It is much more reasonable that the non-apocalyptic 
usage, upon which the contact with the Anthropos tradition depends, 
resulted from the fact that he to whom the name was applied had 
lived among men, suffered, died and risen again, than that it 
should be attributed to the Christians’ knowledge of the Anthropos. 

There are many, however, who feel that to deny that Jesus 
ever used the name Son of Man is to draw an erroneous conclusion 
from the observation that we see him through the eyes of the 
early Christians. They contend that since the name is found 
independently in all strata of our sources, from the Logia and 
Mark through Matthew and Luke, the denial of its use by Jesus 
would place upon all our sources the stamp of complete untrust- 
worthiness, a thing which, evidently, they do not deserve. Reit- 
zenstein, in holding that Jesus’ adoption of the appellative was 
inspired by the existence of speculation concerning the messenger 
Anosh, of course presupposes the acceptance of this position. ?9 
That is therefore the basis upon which we must consider the 
validity of his hypothesis. 

To assert that Jesus employed the name Son of Man in speak- 
ing of himself, does not mean to affirm that all of the passages 
where the name occurs represent the zpsisszma verba of the Master. 
Literary criticism and the comparison of the Synoptic Gospels 
have shown a number of instances in which the name has been 
arbitrarily introduced into the tradition. By examining these 
first we will gain an idea of whether the early Christians of Palestine 
were acquainted with a relation between Anthropos and Son of 
Man. 

Secondary introduction of the name Son of Man is probable 


29 MB, p. 72; IE, pp. 115-31. 
181 


.ANTHROPOS AND. SON OF MAN 


in the Synoptic Gospels in the following instances. In the Logion — 
concerning blasphemy the Q form represented by Mt. 12, 23. 
and Le. 12, 10 ‘“‘whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of 
Man” is probably secondary to the form of Me. 3, 28-9 “‘all sins 
shall be forgiven unto the sons of men and all blasphemies.”’ 
Vice versa, Me. 8, 38 ‘“‘whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of 
me and of my words . . . of him also shall the Son of Man be 
ashamed”’ is secondary to the Logion of Q and within the report — 
of this Logion Le. 12, 8 ‘‘whosoever shall confess me before men, 
him shall the Son of Man confess” is secondary to Mt. 10, 32-3. 
‘“Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I 
also confess . . . but whosoever shall deny me before men him will 
I also deny.”’ Similarly Mt. 16, 13 ““Who do men say that the 
Son of Man is” represents an arbitrary change of Mc. 8, 29 ‘‘who 
do men say that Iam.”’ Again Mt. 16, 28 “till they see the Son 
of Man coming in his kingdom” is an alteration of Me. 9, 1 “till 
they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.”’ In the 
Beatitudes, Matthew’s words (5, 11) ‘‘Blessed are ye when men 
shall . . . say all manner of evil things against you falsely for my 
sake” make it probably that neither “‘for my sake” nor Le. 6, 22 
‘“‘for the sake of the Son of Man” are rooted in the common source 
Q. In the story of the Passion the use of Son of Man in Mt. 26, 2 
and Le. 22, 48; 24, 7 is not grounded either in Me. or in an inde- 
pendent tradition. In Mt. 19, 28 the words “when the Son of 
Man shall sit in the throne of his glory” are probably not indig- 
enous to the source Q which the passage reflects. 

In compiling this list we have limited ourselves to the enumera- 
tion of instances where matters are reasonably clear by virtue of 
the existence of a definite counter-tradition. None the less we 
have here ten passages out of a possible 39 into which the name 
Son of Man has been arbitrarily introduced. Of the ten passages 
four show that the name was introduced in place of the pronoun 
“I.” The others show that the early Christians employed the 
designation with no more than the three connotations found in 
the primary strata of the tradition. 

If the ideas associated by Jesus and the early Christians with 
the name Son of Man were completely coextensive with the ideas 

182 


THE ANTHROPOS AND THE NEW TESTAMENT SON OF MAN 


associated by the Mandeans with Anosh, the secondary passages 
of the Synoptic Gospels listed above would have no message to 
convey. But Anosh has a wider field of associations than the 
Synoptic Son of Man. To assume that Jesus and his earliest 
disciples were acquainted with the Anosh speculation of the 
Mandean type and influenced by it, is out of harmony with the 
mixed conservatism and carelessness to which the secondary 
passages testify. Had the earliest disciples known the Mandean 
Anosh speculation, the probability is that they would have pro- 
ceeded to embody more and more of its elements in the Synoptic 
tradition. 

To this conclusion there will be one objection. The Mandean 
Anosh tradition is said to have found an historical focus in the 
Baptist. Between the followers of John and the disciples of 
Jesus relations are said to have been somewhat strained. This 
tension might be thought to account for the failure of the Christians 
to appropriate the rest of the Anosh tradition. We believe the 
contrary to be the case. Such a relationship would have served 
to quicken the assimilation. ?° 

That the early disciples at least were not acquainted with the 
Anthropos tradition may also be inferred from the way in which 
the unguarded Christian tradition preserved in the apocryphal 
gospels employs the name Son of Man. The three additional 
evangels in which the name is found, namely, the Gospel according 
to the Hebrews,?! the Traditions of Matthew?? and the Gospel 
of Mary*? use the designation merely as a traditional bit of 
machinery. The Synoptic coloring has begun to fade but no 
new elements are added from without. If cognate traditions had 
existed in cultural and geographical proximity these strands of 
unguarded tradition would not have resisted entanglement as 
they seem to have done. 


30Qur position in the matter of the early Christians’ knowledge of the 
Anthropos tradition furnishes an added argument against the contention that 
the source Q is dependent upon the Mandean Apocalypse (cf. Reitzenstein, 
MB, particularly, p. 62.) 

31 Jerome, de Viris [llust., 2. 

32 Clem. Alex., Strom., IV, 6, 35. 

33 Hennecke, Ntliche Apokryphen, vol. 1 (1904), p. 42. 

183 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


Did Jesus himself, then, know and make use of the Anthropos 
tradition? The affirmative answer which Reitzenstein accords 
this question is supported not by any one specific argument with 
which it stands or falls, but by his view of the development of 
Oriental syncretism as a whole and the place of the Anthropos 
within that development. The religious life of the Orient he 
contends, expressed itself in two distinct views of existence. The 
one distinguished sharply between man and God. It is the expres- 
sion of the old Semitic point of view. ‘The other, a product of the 
reflection of Aryan peoples in the Inner Orient, brought the nature 
and destiny of man into direct relation with deity, as personified 
in a heavenly Man from whom the divine element indwelling in 
humanity was derived and by whom, as he appeared in the capacity 
of divine messenger, it was redeemed. Of these two views of 
existence, the latter became the dominant force in virtually all of 
the movements characterizing the religious life of the Hellenistic 
Orient. Not even Judaism in its popular Palestinian, sectarian 
and Hellenistic phases escaped the influence of this great concept 
in which is to be found the root of the religion of salvation. By 
styling himself Son of Man (literally “the man’) Jesus gave 
expression to the conviction that he was the human messenger in 
whom the heavenly Man manifested himself to save that which 
was lost. He associated himself thereby, with the expectations 
of his people and with the great religious hope of the Oriental 
world. As the messenger of God the Orient accepted him for its 
savior. 34 

Over against this remarkable construction we must aline in the 
first place, our inquiry into the Anthropos tradition. We think 
we have shown that in his earlier forms the Anthropos is not a 
figure of universal and determinative importance, but merely a 
type of primordial champion and the father-creator of the human 
race. It would appear to us, moreover, that those elements of 
the tradition which connect him with human nature and its redemp- 


34 Reitzenstein’s view of the development of religious thought in the 
Hellenistic Orient finds its clearest expression in the third edition of his 
“‘Hellenistische Mysterienreligionen”’ (1927). We regret that we have not 
been able to make use of it except in connection with the last pages of MS. 

184 


THE ANTHROPOS AND THE NEW TESTAMENT SON OF MAN 


tion represent accretions added in the course of its syncretistic 
adaptation. We have seen fit to suppose that, while he had at 
one time affected Jewish thought, the capacity in which he appeared 
in this sphere was that of primordial champion and the influence 
exerted one of brief duration. Those phases of Hellenistic and 
sectarian Judaism which seemed to reflect Anthropos Theology, 
appeared to represent the product of Jewish speculation ultimately 
stimulated by, but not directly related to the figure of the Anthro- 
pos. The similarity between the names Son of Man (literally 
‘“‘the man”’) and Anthropos, so striking at first glance, is explained, 
therefore, as the result of the action of parallel processes tending to 
produce denominations for nameless figures, figures which, while 
they ultimately revert to the same parent stock, were no longer 
related to one another when the nomenclature was finally 
established. 

Anyone accepting these conclusions regarding the importance 
and growth of the Anthropos tradition will find little verisimilitude 
in the hypothesis connecting the Anthropos and Jesus’ use of the 
name Son of Man. It must be admitted however, that this does 
not entirely dispose of the matter. The problem of Anthropos 
and Son of Man, as Reitzenstein has stated it, involves no less 
than a formula to express the religious genius of what Spengler 
called ‘‘Arabic Culture.’”’ Before it will be possible to set aside 
Reitzenstein’s conclusions entirely, it will be necessary to discover 
a better formula for the analysis of the religious development of 
the Hellenistic Orient. This is something the scope of which 
transcends our abilities. 

Reitzenstein’s hypothesis, though it may not contain the 
solution of the Son of Man problem, cannot fail to stimulate new 
lines of thought in connection with the mooted question. Particu- 
larly the attention directed by him to the Mandean messengers 
should prove helpful in future discussions of the subject. They 
bring to the fore the importance of the role played by lesser 
personages such as messengers, prophets and forerunners in 
Jewish religious expectations. Inevitably they will raise the 
question whether Jesus, in referring to himself as “the man,” 
did not at first employ this expression to designate himself as 

185 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


‘‘the expected man” in the sense of messenger or forerunner, 
quite apart from the traditions connected with Anthropos and 
with ‘‘the man-like one,’’ and whether the messianic use of the 
designation was not, as Reitzenstein contends, the result of its 
being able to convey a higher and more particular meaning. In 
this respect the hypothesis of Reitzenstein may yet contribute 
to the solution of the Son of Man problem. 


186 


SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 


Let us endeavor to summarize the results of the inquiry 
embodied in the preceding pages. 


1. The Anthropos, it appears, represents in all probability the 
Hellenistic and Syncretistic form of the ancient Iranian gaya- 
maretan, ‘‘mortal life,’ a mythical person originally devoid of a 
proper name and not removed from ideas of bisexuality, and one 
of whom story told that that he had formed a part of the pre- 
éxistent spiritual creation of Ahura Mazda in the capacity of 
prototype of humanity, had been embodied in the ensuing 
material creation, had occupied a role of great importance in the 
fatal primordial battle with the evil forces of Ahriman, had at the 
moment of death become the progenitor of humanity, had con- 
tributed elements to the formation of material cosmos and would 
in the future life occupy a prominent place among the blessed. 

2. Gayomart became known to the people of Mesopotamia 
probably in pre-Parthian days. By reason of his place in the 
primordial conflict he was identified with Marduk and thus 
transformed into a man-like deity and a primordial champion. 
Subsequent stages in the development of the tradition demand that 
he was regarded both as victorious and as defeated champion in 
the early period of his evolution, all depending upon whether 
Babylonian or Iranian elements were accorded a position of pre- 
dominance in the narratives. Simultaneously, in lieu of his 
original bisexuality, he was associated with a female paredros, 
perhaps the goddess Ishtar. 

3. In the capacity of victorious primordial champion and man- 
like deity he was received into Judaism in the second pre-Christian 
century, and furnished the inspiration for the properly nameless 
_“man-like one” of Daniel, and for the messianic interpretation 
187 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


which the figure received in the Book of Enoch. At the same 
time his humanity abetted the transformation of the Hebrew con- 
ception of the protoplast, the common origin of Bar Nasha and 
celestial Adam giving rise to the coérdination of Adam and Christ. 

4, The years between the Book of Enoch and Saturninus pro- 
duced two additional changes in the Anthropos. Mesopotamian 
teachers made his relation to the human race, his downfall and 
the fact that this downfall was connected with the birth of the 
human race intelligible to people of their sphere by introducing 
the Anthropos into the Hebrew account of the creation of man. 
In the resultant story, the Chaldean Tale, the Anthropos is brought 
low because his offspring and image, man, was animated and thus 
made subject to the inferior powers. Perhaps it was his introduc- 
tion into the Biblical account of creation and the fact that Genesis 
derives both the image and the soul from the one God that produced 
the next step in the development, namely the correlation of Anthro- 
pos and a divine element of human nature. This element was 
originally, no doubt, the Soul of the Soul Drama, though it later 
appears as Spirit and Reason as well. That the Anthropos was 
first related to the Soul in Mesopotamia is probable since the 
relation is presupposed in even the earliest reaches of Syrian and 
Egyptian Anthropos tradition, and since a knowledge of the Soul 
Drama is presupposed in the Chaldean Tale. 

5. At the end of the first Christian century the knowledge of the 
Anthropos had spread to the Syrian and Egyptian portions of the 
Mediterranean littoral. Here the descriptive nomenclature origi- 
nally applied to the figure gives way to proper names like Anthropos. 
As a deity of the rank of Marduk, he aspires to various positions 
(particularly first and third) in the upper strata of the Gnostic 
pleromata. Where Greek thought is known and catered to, he is 
identified with metaphysical postulates correspondingly placed in 
the line of ultimates and thus appears as Nous, Logos and All. 
Whether the macrocosmic significance accruing to him in this 
connection is a reminiscence of Iranian tradition it is difficult to 
say. In Syria, it would seem, he was identified with the Jewish 
celestial Adam, an identification that produced the Mandean 
Adam Raba and the designations Adamas and Adakas. In both 

188 


SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 


Syria and Egypt two strands of tradition convey the thought of 
the relation between Anthropos and man. The first relates that 
he furnished the image for the construction of the human form. 
The second tells of his contributing an element to human nature. 
Of these the latter usually presents no motive for or description of 
the introduction of the element. Both have a common origin. 
The first represents the Chaldean Tale in a relatively pure form. 
The second is the final product of the tendency to interpret the 
Chaldean Tale in the light of the Soul Drama and finally to dis- 
regard its Biblical frame-work under pressure of the interest for the 
fact conveyed. The Poimandres is an elaborated example of 
the transition going on in this direction. 

6. The necessity of bringing Anthropos and Soul together and 
the occasion afforded either by the Mandean conception of the 
Adamites as messengers or perhaps by the views connected in 
Syria with Sophia, resulted in the idea that the Anthropos reap- 
peared for the salvation of the soul in the guise of a divine savior. 
Among the saviors connected with the Anthropos are first the 
Adamites then Christ, and finally Buddha, Zarathushtra and Mani. 
In the earlier phases of the tradition the saviors appear as the sons 
of the Anthropos. Here we have to reckon with either Christian or 
Mandean influence, or both. Under pressure of Greek metaphysics. 
the savior becomes the immanent counterpart of the Anthropos. 
Finally, in the days of christological niceties the saviors are the 
hypostases or modes of the Anthropos. 

7. In Manicheism the Anthropos Theology finds its most 
complete and codrdinated expression. All the steps of the pre- 
ceding development find an echo here. The Manichean Primal 
Man is defeated and victorious champion, father-creator of man 
and the origin of an element of man’s constitution, and one who is. 
manifested in seven saviors from Adam to Mani. The intimacy 
of Mani’s contact with Iran resulted in the introduction of new 
Iranian elements into the tradition. The Anthropos is identified 
with Ormuzd on the one hand and Mithras on the other. Repre- 
senting the latter he takes his abode in the sun. The relation of 
Anthropos and soul is stated in terms of person and self. Eschat- 
ological importance attaches to the primordial champion. 

189 


ANTHROPOS AND SON OF MAN 


8. The last step in the process is identification of Anthropos 
and daena presupposed in the later Mandean texts. 

From our study of the Anthropos tradition we gain a limited 
insight, at least, into the religious development of the later Orient 
as a whole. We see, in the first place, that Gnostic theology 
embodies many elements of remarkable antiquity native to the 
East and possessive of continued importance in this sphere. We 
perceive that the tradition connected with any one figure may 
represent a great number of strata deposited one atop the other as 
the result of the action of shifting winds of influence. We gain 
the impression, moreover, that the syncretistic movement which 
took such violent strides forward in the second century, has a 
history dating back to the second pre-Christian century and finds 
its origin in a proto-Gnostic sphere of thought. With one phase 
of the proto-Gnostic circle of ideas, the Mesopotamian, we have 
become partly acquainted. It contains Iranian, Babylonian and 
Jewish elements as well as the unlocalized Soul Drama. Influence 
was apparently exerted upon the littoral Orient from Mesopotamia 
at two distinct junctures, in the second century B.C., and toward 
the end of the first century A.D. This phenomenon finds its expla- 
nation, no doubt, in the disturbance created in the Orient by the 
period of Parthian domination. The elements included in the 
Mesopotamian phase of proto-Gnostic thought, were, so far as 
we have analyzed them, of no direct importance for the growth of 
Christian convictions. Indeed, we should be inclined to search 
for the key to the forces which influenced nascent Christianity in 
that form of religious life which, since pre-Parthian days, had 
been moulding itself in Syria. 


190 


ABA 


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MB 


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ABBREVIATIONS 


Abhandlungen der Berliner Akademie der Wissen- 
schaften. 


Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics.. 
Handbuch der altorientalischen Geisteskultur. 
Die Hellenistischen Mysterienreligionen. 

Das Iranische Erlésungsmysterium. 

Das Johannesbuch der Mandier. 

Journal of the American Oriental Society. 
Left Ginza. 


Das Manddische Buch des Herrn der Grésse und die 
Evangelieniiberlieferung. 


Mandaische Liturgien. 

Die Mandiaische Religion. 
Mandaische Schriften. 

Patrologia Latina. 
Protestantische Realenzyklopedie. 
Right Ginza. 


Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie der Wissen- 
schaften. 


Sacred Books of the East. 

Texte und Untersuchungen. 

Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlandischen Gesellschaft. 
Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengeschichte. 


191 


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